Question

In Roman jurisprudence, the concept similar to the Rule of Law was referred to as:

• A. Jus Civile
• B. Lex Regia
• C. Jus Naturale
• D. Jus Gentium

Hint:

In jurisprudence, many modern legal doctrines trace their origins to Roman legal concepts. Learning the meaning of important Latin terms helps in solving conceptual questions quickly.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

Roman law grew over centuries and split into several distinct branches, each covering a different slice of legal life, so identifying the Rule of Law analogue means picking out the one branch that dealt with the legal basis of ruling power itself.

1. Jus Civile: this was the everyday law of the Roman citizen, covering ordinary private disputes, and has nothing to do with how the ruler's authority was itself framed in legal terms.
2. Lex Regia: the term is tied to the notion that supreme power was conferred through law and thus remained tied to law as its source and justification, which mirrors the core Rule of Law idea that even the highest authority draws its legitimacy from law rather than standing above it.
3. Jus Naturale: this branch was about a higher moral law thought to bind all humanity by nature and reason, a philosophical backdrop for later ideas of justice, but it is not the branch concerned with the legal grounding of a ruler's power.
4. Jus Gentium: this branch developed to handle commercial and legal relations involving non-citizens, useful for trade and diplomacy, but again unconnected to the question of a ruler's power being sourced in and limited by law.

Tracing which branch specifically concerns the legal basis of sovereign authority points to Lex Regia as the concept closest to the Rule of Law.

The correct answer is Lex Regia.

Answer 2

Another way to settle this is to pair up the modern idea of Rule of Law, meaning that authority is exercised through and is accountable to law rather than personal whim, with each Roman term in turn and see which pairing actually lines up.

1. Jus Civile: paired against Rule of Law, this term is about which law applies to citizens in private matters, a question of scope, not a question of whether the ruler is bound by law, so the pairing does not hold.
2. Lex Regia: paired against Rule of Law, this term directly concerns how supreme power is created and grounded through law, which is the same underlying concern as Rule of Law, namely that authority is a creature of law rather than existing independently of it; the pairing holds.
3. Jus Naturale: paired against Rule of Law, this term is about an unwritten universal moral code rather than the positive legal basis of a ruler's authority, so while related to justice broadly, the pairing with Rule of Law specifically does not hold.
4. Jus Gentium: paired against Rule of Law, this term is about the choice of applicable law in dealings with foreigners, a conflict-of-laws type concern, which again does not match the specific idea of power being bound by law.

Only the pairing with Lex Regia captures the same essential concern as the Rule of Law, that supreme authority is grounded in and answerable to law.

Therefore, the correct answer is Lex Regia.