ABSTRACT
The practice which democratic governments have of continually legislating prevents anyone from being convinced that an appeal to positive law is an appeal to fundamental principles. Positive law intended to reflect a natural law norm of craftmanship would have to be directed towards creating the conditions believed to promote the norm, and the influence of the norm would not be directly discernible in the legislation. The concept of sovereignty puts the jurist in an ambiguous position as regards the relationship of justice to ethics. The moment the judge attempts to follow the intent rather than the letter of the law, he himself becomes in part a law-giver whose private judgement of what is necessary to social order acquires at least as much importance as that of the sovereign.
