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Rechtsstaat
Sign in to savethumb|The Law, between Justice and State Power, allegory by [[Dominique Antoine Magaud (1899)]]Rechtsstaat (; lit. "state of law"; "legal state") is a doctrine in continental European legal thinking, originating in German jurisprudence. It can be translated into English as "rule of law", alternatively "legal state", state of law, "state of justice", or "state based on justice and integrity". It means that everyone is subjected to the law, especially governments.
Rechtsstaat is a continental European legal principle, originating in German jurisprudence, meaning that everyone—including government itself—is subject to the law. It matters because it establishes that no person or institution, regardless of power, is above the legal system.
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- Instance of
- legal doctrine
- Subclass of
- state
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- Category:Rechtsstaat
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- State of Law Coalition
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Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Immanuel Kant
- Principles of the ''Rechtsstaat''
- Russian model of ''Rechtsstaat'': a concept of the legal state
- See also
- References
- External links
thumb|The Law, between Justice and State Power, allegory by [[Dominique Antoine Magaud (1899)]]Rechtsstaat (; lit. "state of law"; "legal state") is a doctrine in continental European legal thinking, originating in German jurisprudence. It can be translated into English as "rule of law", alternatively "legal state", state of law, "state of justice", or "state based on justice and integrity". It means that everyone is subjected to the law, especially governments.
A Rechtsstaat is a constitutional state in which the exercise of governmental power is based on and constrained by the law. It is closely related to "constitutionalism" which is often tied to the Anglo-American concept of the rule of law, but differs from it in also emphasizing what is just (i.e., a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity). Thus it is the opposite of Obrigkeitsstaat () or Nichtrechtsstaat (a state based on the arbitrary use of power), and of Unrechtsstaat (a non-Rechtsstaat with the capacity to become one after a period of historical development).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Rechtsstaat” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.