ABSTRACT

Such a conception of the manifestation of law in the human person is almost unthinkable to the modem Western mind, which considers the law to exist outside of individually autonomous beings. In modern Anglo-Australian law, for example, the moral person is subject to the law but our identity is regarded as separate from the law, and independent from it in many important respects. We (the Western we) are not the law: a police officer is not the law, a judge is not the law, a member of parliament is not the law - even though each office is sometimes colloquially referred to in this way. The various ideas associated with the notion of the 'rule of law' are supposed to ensure the distinctness of law from any individual, and therefore the protection of each subject from non-legal exercises of power.2 Most importantly, the law is certainly not us: we are essentially ourselves, and the law is just something imposed upon us in order to regulate our interactions.