Equality before the law

Equality before the law is the principle that everyone is subject to the same laws and entitled to equal treatment by legal institutions, without arbitrary privilege or discrimination.

Rule of law: The principle that public power is exercised under publicly known, consistently applied laws. Equality before the law is one measure of whether law governs officials and citizens alike.
Judicial review: The power of courts to assess whether laws or government actions comply with higher law. It allows courts to invalidate government measures that violate equality guarantees.
Legal privilege: A special legal advantage or exemption granted to a person or class. Arbitrary privilege is the direct opposite of equal subjection to law.
Magna Carta: A 1215 charter that compelled the English king to accept limits on royal authority. Its limits on arbitrary royal power became an influential precedent for lawful government.
Brown v. Board of Education: A 1954 United States Supreme Court decision holding racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. It applied equal protection to reject state-enforced racial separation in public education.
Legal personhood: The status of being recognized as a bearer of rights and duties under law. Equal treatment requires the legal system to recognize people as subjects of law.
Anti-discrimination law: Laws that prohibit specified forms of unequal treatment, often in defined settings such as employment or public services. These statutes make particular forms of unequal legal treatment actionable.
Sovereign immunity: A doctrine limiting when a state or sovereign can be sued without its consent. It illustrates how legal systems may exempt powerful actors from ordinary procedures.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: A 1789 French declaration asserting liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression as rights. Its first article proclaimed that people are born and remain free and equal in rights.
Civil Rights Act of 1964: A United States federal law prohibiting discrimination on specified grounds in public accommodations, employment, and federally funded programs. It extended legal protections against discrimination beyond constitutional litigation.

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