Law Commons^™

Fair And Impartial Adjudication, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Any legal system that purports to respect the rule of law must ensure the fair and impartial adjudication of disputes under the law. Classic accounts of the rule of law assume that courts should resolve such disputes. However, this is too narrow. All forms of adjudication, not just by courts, need to be fair and impartial. In any event, no one could claim that courts or entities by that name are always fair and impartial. All legal systems need a guarantee of fair and impartial adjudication that applies to all forms of dispute resolution under law.

A dispute arising under …