RULE OF LAW EXPLAINED

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29910, 25 August 1962, Page 4

RULE OF LAW EXPLAINED

Address By Sir Ivor Jennings

The historical foundations of the rule of law in Britain were explained to members of the University of Canterbury Law Students’ Society by Sir Ivor Jennings, Vice-Chancel-lor of Cambridge University, at a luncheon.

Sir Ivor Jennings quoted from chapters of the Magna Charta to show how fundamental freedoms had been placed on the statute books as early as the thirteenth century. The rule of law was an imprecise term, hard to define. he explained Behind any concept of the rule of law was another concept, liberty. The relationship between liberty, and the rule of law was that there was a legal framework within which opinions could be expressed. He said that within the ambit of the rule of law were such general constitutional principles as the functioning of the due process of the law: the use of the prerogative writs such as habeas corpus and certiorari and an insistence on natural justice being followed.