The rule of law primarily means that everything must be done according to law. Applied to the powers of government, this requires that every government authority which does some act which would otherwise be a wrong or which infringes a man’s liberty, must be able to justify its action as authorised by Law and in nearly every case this will mean authorised directly or indirectly by legal provisions. However, the rule of law demands something more, since otherwise it would be satisfied by giving the government unrestricted discretionary powers, so that everything that they did was within the law. The secondary meaning of the rule of law, therefore, is that government should be conducted within a framework of recognised rules and principles which restrict discretionary power.