The Rule of Law: From unconscious unawareness to conscious awareness (and beyond?)

Abstract

The recent deployment of ‘the Rule of Law’ by the Prime Minister and Attorney-General relies upon a shared notion that the Rule of Law is a good thing. While everyone is in favour of it, do we really know what it is? Even if we do, is it the case that we take it to mean the same thing as other people? By adopting a critical view of Rule of Law conceptions that are accepted as constituting the meaning of the concept of the Rule of Law, I expose the problems in thinking that we all know, or agree, what the Rule of Law is.