ABSTRACT
Many different kinds of professionals work with law, but often they seek to use law for particular governmental or private purposes, or they focus on some specific areas or aspects of its creation, interpretation or application, or they study it for its interest judged by criteria given by fields of scholarly practice outside it. Is there a special significance for a role exclusively concerned with analysing, protecting, and enhancing the general well-being or worth of law as a practical idea? This chapter argues that such a role is important. Building on Gustav Radbruch’s juristic thought, it asks how that role should be elaborated and how a professional responsibility for discharging it might be envisaged. Many professionals concerned with law adopt such a role incidentally or intermittently, but it needs more prominence and clear demarcation. The chapter treats it as the specialised role of the jurist, conceptualised as a legal professional of a particular kind, or with a particular outlook on law. The term ‘jurist’ would then have not just an honorific connotation. It would indicate a Weberian ‘pure’ type that may approximate some current understandings of juristic practice, but it would also identify a normative ideal – something intrinsically valuable. Seen in this way the jurist is one who assumes a certain unique value-oriented responsibility for law.
