“[T]he Constitution controls the deployment of governmental power and defines the rules for how such power may be structured and applied. The Constitution, therefore, is not a body of rules about ordinary private actions, but a collection of rules about the rules and uses of law: in a word, metalaw.” Laurence H. Tribe, Constitutional Choices 246 (1985).
metalaw
metalaw (met-[schwa]-law). A hypothetical set of legal principles based on the rules of existing legal systems and designed to provide a framework of agreement for these different systems.
