Ronald Dworkin Essay

According to Ronald Dworkin, judges should interpret the law rather than attempt to amend it or make new laws. He contends that allowing judges to enact laws would usurp the authority of the legislature, which is the body charged with creating and amending laws. Dworkin holds the position that when interpreting the law, judges should take moral standards, particularly fairness and justice, into consideration. According to Dworkin, when challenging cases are presented to the court, the judges should interpret them in a way that upholds the community’s duty to handle its members in a cogent and principled manner. (Dworkin, 1986). Jerome Frank on the other hand is of the view that judges have the power to make and change the law. Frank insists that judges cannot be limited to the conventional view that the law is a complete body of rules that is unchangeable.

Dworkin argues that law is argumentative and thus we should take it in that light so that we can grasp the importance of the law. He says that legal practice unlike many other social phenomena is argumentative (Dworkin, 1986). Dworkin continues to say that the grounds of law should be understood in terms of substantive justification by a way of interpretation. By interpreting the law through disagreement and argumentation is the only way that we can understand the practice of law. The root of Dworkin’s thinking is motivated by the fact that if we understand why people argue and disagree, we will be able to interpret the law in a better way (Dworkin, 1986).

The realists approach is weaker compared to the interpretative view of Dworkin. In using Dworkin’s approach one is assured of achieving a better result. Thus, Dworkin was right to say that the law should be interpreted in a unifying manner in order to create clarity and certainty in the laws.

Reference

Dworkin, R. (1986). Law’s Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.