Law And Integrity Essay

Integrity is the focal point of Dworkin's philosophy of law. For Dworkin, law as integrity is the best conception that best fits the concept of law.[ See Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire, (Hart Publishing, 2006), p 90 for a distinction between concepts and conceptions.] To word it in another manner, Dworkin's theory of law as integrity best justifies the legal practice. At this point, I would postulate that it is through an understanding of the reason behind Dworkin's assertion of law as integrity being the best theory that justifies the legal practice, that we would come to an understanding of the role of integrity and how it would assist judges in hard cases. Dworkin asserts that the fundamental point of law is to "guide and constrain the powers of government"[ Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire, (Hart Publishing, 2006), p 93.], and that the best theory of law is one that best justifies the use of coercion by the government. The conception of law as integrity seeks to explain the legal practice in light of this principle. It should be noted that the term government is defined widely to include the political and legal institutions as a whole. In our context, we are to assess how law as integrity justifies the use of coercion by the judiciary, for they do possess coercive functions, like the imposition of a prison sentence or a fine, and how they are to utilise these coercive powers, especially in hard cases.

With the example above, explanatory role of integrity is made manifest. Integrity as an adjudicative principle explains that judges are not "idiosyncratic"[ Martin P. Golding and William A. Edmundson (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, (Blackwell Publishing, 2006), American Legal Realism, Brian Bix...

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...rt has overstepped its boundaries by incorporating women's reproductive freedom into the legal concept of privacy to allow for the procurement of abortions. Though judges may have a duty to take into account political morality and depart from the literal meaning of the rules, they should have left it to the democratic process and the constitutional amendment procedures put in place to settle this issue; if otherwise, it may be contrary to the "authoritative nature of law"[ See Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law (2nd edi.), (Oxford UP, 2011)] where the finality of law is compromised. This is the risk involved when we say that "law is an interpretive concept."[ Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire, (Hart Publishing, 2006), p 410] This is the risk when we say that "Judges should decide what the law is by interpreting the practice of other judges deciding what the law is."[ Ibid.]