ABSTRACT
In most European systems of law, the work of the judge, in traditional legal theory, consists of interpretation and nothing more. In theory, enacted law-the codes-are the only legitimate source of legal doctrine. In common law systems, the theory has always been somewhat more complicated. The 'law' is composed, in part, of statutes, which must be 'interpreted', just as in France or Italy. But there is also the so-called 'unwritten' or common law (it is in fact anything but unwritten). Here, however, theory treats the principles of common law as a kind of rambling, scattered text, which evolves at a somewhat sluggish pace. The judges 'interpret' this text, in the course of deciding concrete cases. Curiously enough, this rather archaic view of the common law can be dressed up today in the latest and most fashionable hermeneutic language. It has become commonplace to say that 'adjudication is interpretation', and that the acts of judges, in common law countries, are essentially and unavoidably interpretive. Of course, the word 'interpretation' has many meanings and many scholars use the word in an expanded sense. There is a sense in which interpretation is much more than a task for lawyers and judges. It is part of everyday life to interpret: to discover a meaning in words, acts, and attitudes of others. In this sense, all social behaviour is interpretive, legal life and legal action no less than any other. In the realm of living law, however, interpretation goes on constantly in a much more literal sense. Everybody 'interprets' law, even when 'law' is as simple a matter as a speed limit, or a sign in a public place that forbids smoking. No action is possible without some interpretive screen, some filter in the mind of the observer.
