The rule of law has been precisely conceptualized by AV Dicey (AV Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, Macmilan and Co. Ltd. (1952), pp. 183-205), which can be summarized into three postulates:
(1) “no man is punishable or can be lawfully made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts of the land”, as contrasted to the “the exercise by persons in authority of wide, arbitrary, or discretionary powers of
constraint”;
(2) “no man is above the law”, and that “every man, whatever be his rank or condition, is subject to the ordinary law of the realm and amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals”; and
(3) “the predominance of the legal spirit” or that “the general principles of the constitution… are with us the result of
judicial decisions determining the rights of private persons in particular cases brought before the courts”.