The German term Rechtsstaat (literally “state [constituted by] law”) denotes a state that is founded on the just rule of law. Although it is unique to German, having been coined in the doctrines of German government law, similar concepts are found in all democratic western constitutions concerned with liberty, which bind the exercise of state authority to the law. The guiding idea, from Plato’s nomocracy to the American “government of law and not of men,” (Supre…