ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Common law and statute law are the two most important sources of law in the AngloAmerican legal systems so this topic should have an inherent appeal for students of jurisprudence. However the common law and statutory law are both a useful lens through which to view legal theorists, as different legal theorists tend to focus on common law or statute law and give one of them pre-eminence in their legal theories depending on the focus of their own theory of law. For example, Bentham was implacably hostile to the common law but saw his ideal form of law in the comprehensive codification of law namely statutory law.
