“A number of distinct meanings are normally given to the provision that there should be equality before the law. One meaning is that equality before the law only connotes the equal subjection of all to a common system of law, whatever its content…. A second theory asserts that equality before the law is basically a procedural concept, pertaining to the application and enforcement of laws and the operation of the legal system…. A third meaning normally borne by declarations that all are equal before the law, perhaps no more than a variant of the second, is that State and individual before the law should be equal.” Polyvios G. Polyviou, The Equal Protection of the Laws 1–2 (1980).
equality before the law
equality before the law. The status or condition of being treated fairly according to regularly established norms of justice; esp., in British constitutional law, the notion that all persons are subject to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary law courts, that officials and others are not exempt from the general duty of obedience to the law, that discretionary governmental powers must not be abused, and that the task of superintending the operation of law rests with an impartial, independent judiciary.
