Dicey’s concept of the rule of law
It was in 1885 that Professor Albert Venn Dicey published his Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution1. Professor Dicey was Vinerian Professor of English Law in the University of Oxford. He wrote about the English Constitution, and therefore about a unitary system of government rather than a federal one, such as those of Australia, Canada and the United Stated of America. In a federal system, the sovereignty of parliament is qualified by the bifurcation of power between the federal parliament and the state or provincial parliaments. But, within their respective fields under the federal compact, the rule of law is relevant to both polities.