At a minimum, it subjects an otherwise absolute monarch or executive and all free people within its jurisdictions (i.e. England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland), to legal doctrines known as the general principles of law.
It has evolved to work alongside the equal application of the law to all free people, and within the framework of the constitutional monarchy to support the legal doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty.
Among recognised academics in this field are Albert Dicey, Joseph Raz, Friedrich Hayek, and Trevor Allan, who have proposed contrasting ideas about the scope of the rule of law: specifically, whether the emphasis is on legal form or substantive content and normatively if it should be.
Before its union with England and Wales in 1707 the Parliament of Scotland was long portrayed as a constitutionally defective body[5] that acted merely as a rubber stamp for royal decisions, but research during the early 21st century has found that it played an active role in Scottish affairs, and was sometimes a thorn in the side of the Scottish crown.
All of these three groups of institutions have proven wary of upsetting or offending the others, adopting conventions designed to ensure their long-term integrity and hence self-preservation.
In return, Parliament has acquiesced in the senior courts' ability to declare unlawful new legislation based on older Treaty-based legislation, for instance the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 in the Factortame I and IV decisions; executive action claims in judicial review are now often based on the Human Rights Act 1998 (and in turn the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenants).
[7] Trevor Allan sees the rule of law as, primarily, a vehicle for the protection of rights against "irresponsible legislative encroachment" in the face of a government with a large authority, backed by a significant majority in the House of Commons.
[9] Allan thus supports the idea that there are core features of the rule of law, including government acting within its legal authority.
Such a regime may allow for the normal operation of courts between private parties, and the limited questioning of the government within a dictatorial framework.
The judiciary has found difficulty in deciding what the specific constitutional or fundamental rights the rule of law should enforce.
[12] In R (Corner House Research), the defendant, a prosecutorial body, was deemed to allow national security considerations to take precedence over a thorough investigation into alleged bribery in certain arms deals, an apparent departure from the principle of completely equal application of the law, which has been perceived as a breach of the modern-day rule of law.