Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
Equality
The quality or state of being equal; esp., likeness in power or political status. See EQUAL PROTECTION. "We need not repeat the burning irony of Anatole France: 'The law in its majesty draws no distinction but forbids rich and poor alike from begging in the streets or from sleeping in the public parks.' Equality is meaningless under unequal conditions." Morris R. Cohen, Reason and Law 101 (1961).
equality before the law
The status or condition of being treated fairly according to regularly established norms of justice; esp., in British constitutional law, the notion that all persons are subject to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary law courts, that officials and others are not exempt from the general duty of obedience to the law, that discretionary governmental powers must not be abused, and that the task of superintending the operation of law rests with an impartial, independent judiciary. "A number of distinct meanings are normally given to the provision that there should be equality before the law. One meaning is that equality before the law only connotes the equal subjection of all to a common system of law, whatever its content .... A second theory asserts that equality before the law is basically a procedural concept, pertaining to the application and enforcement of laws and the operation of the legal system .... A third meaning normally borne by declarations that all are equal before the law, perhaps no more than a variant of the second, is that State and individual before the law should be equal." Polyvios G. Polyviou, The Equal Protection of the Laws 1-2 (1980).
equality of states
Int'l law. The doctrine that all fully independent nations are equal under international law. ( This doctrine does not, of course, mean that all nations are equal in power or influence, but merely that, as nations, they all have the same legal rights.