Rechtsstaat

Thus it is the opposite of Obrigkeitsstaat (German: [ˈoːbʁɪçkaɪ̯t͡sʃtaːt] ⓘ) or Nichtrechtsstaat (a state based on the arbitrary use of power),[2] and of Unrechtsstaat (a non-Rechtsstaat with the capacity to become one after a period of historical development).

[3] In a Rechtsstaat, the power of the state is limited in order to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of authority.

This supremacy must create guarantees for implementation of his central idea: a permanent peaceful life as a basic condition for the happiness of its people and their prosperity.

... Taken simply by itself, Kant's political philosophy, being essentially a legal doctrine, rejects by definition the opposition between moral education and the play of passions as alternate foundations for social life.

"[8]The actual expression Rechtsstaat appears to have been introduced by Carl Theodor Welcker in 1813,[9][10] but it was popularised by Robert von Mohl's book Die deutsche Polizeiwissenschaft nach den Grundsätzen des Rechtsstaates ("German Policy Science according to the Principles of the Constitutional State"; 1832–33).

The concept of "legal state" (Правовое государство, pravovoe gosudarstvo) is a fundamental (but undefined) principle that appears in the very first dispositive provision of Russia's post-Communist constitution: "The Russian Federation – Russia – constitutes a democratic federative legal state with a republican form of governance."

Valery Zorkin, President of the Constitutional Court of Russia, wrote in 2003: Becoming a legal state has long been our ultimate goal, and we have certainly made serious progress in this direction over the past several years.

[15] The standards of constitutional economics when used during annual budget planning, as well as the latter's transparency to the civil society, are of primary importance to the implementation of the rule of law.