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There is no literal translation of the English term “rule of law” into Spanish. Our choice of words for that purpose necessarily requires a conceptual stipulation. Most likely, we could use the term “Estado de Derecho” (“state of law”), at least linguistically akin to the German Rechtsstaat -- – but not identical in meaning. “Estado de derecho” is broad enough to speculate about its contents with some freedom, just like we speculate about the components of “rule of law”. To infuse further complexity to an already lively debate, the Spanish version of the term could also be “Imperio de la Ley” ('Law's empire'). This term would denote a rather thin conception of rule of law, possibly closer to the “rule by law”. In any event, these alternatives seem to refer to Law, as a concept, rather than to the mere sum of all laws in force in a particular legal system --– simply because these terms do not use the Spanish plural of law, i.e., leyes.
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The term “rule of law” is scarcely used in legislation, court decisions or legal commentary in Mexico. From this perspective, a simple answer to the question of what the term means in the Mexican legal system is that it is irrelevant. The debates leading to the adoption of the Mexican constitution of 1917 --– an amendment of the 1857 Constitution – contain but a couple of references to the term; no such mention transcended to the constitutional text itself, nor has any been incorporated throughout over 500 amendments to the text in the past 95 years.
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