ABSTRACT

Current legal theory is premised on the central role of the judge in contemporary legal systems. Although this evolution has contributed much to a vibrant understanding of law, it has also left the role of the legislator largely ignored and under-theorised. Legal theory routinely takes the law as ‘just there’, and limits its theoretical undertakings to law as a ‘given’. Law, it claims, is the result of political decision-making. But once law comes into force, it can be somehow miraculously separated from politics. And the realm of politics is impure – unlike law’s ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ methods of reasoning and decision-making.