Professor Benny Tai of University of Hong Kong,
in his book 法治心：超越條文與制度的法律價值 The Passion for Rule of Law: Values beyond Legal Text and
Legal Institutions, considers rule law in four levels of progress [1]:
(1) Existence
of law 有法可依
- Laws of the legal system must satisfy certain qualitative requirements: generality, publicised, stability, clarity, non-retroactivity, non-contradictory, against impossibility, against arbitrariness and general congruence of law with social values.
- Laws must also have covered major areas of human activities
- The sovereign adopts law as the major governing tool.
- Officials are commanded to apply laws in governing though there is still only internal mechanism to ensure officials’ compliance with law.
- Public order is basically maintained.
- Disputes in the society are mainly resolved through peaceful and legal means.
(3) Limitation
from law 以法限權
- Law imposes external limits on the exercise of governmental powers through various channels including limitation by separation, constitutional limitation, administrative limitation, judicial limitation, political limitation and social limitation.
- The government and its officials and agents are accountable under the law.
- Corruption must have been substantially contained.
- Competent, independent, and ethical adjudicators, attorneys or representatives provide access to justice.
(4) Justice
through law 以法達義
- Law serves justice of different conceptions including procedural justice, civil rights justice, social justice and deliberative justice (the ability for public to meaningfully participate in the law making process).
[1] 戴耀廷Benny Y.T. Tai, 法治心：超越條文與制度的法律價值 The Passion for Rule of Law: Values beyond Legal Text and Legal Institutions (Hong Kong Educational Publishing Co., 2012) [Chinese]
