ABSTRACT
Ronald Dworkin has identified H.L.A. Hart with the view that law consists in mIes. 1 That attribution is partially understandable, if ultimately unwarranted. Hart does claim that law consists in mies, but he also explicitly acknowledges that customary norms can constitute part of a community's law though they are not mIes. Even if Dworkin overstates the point, it is tme that mies are essential both to Hart's jurispmdence and to his theory of adjudication. Why is it that law, for Hart, is primarily a matter of mies?
