Law or Morality: What Influences Judges Decisions?

Abstract

My research paper will try to review the roles of judges in the concept of law and put forward an argument that, Law is not autonomous nor its relationship to morality and other discipline contingent, rather other disciplines directly influences the rule of Law as evidenced in how judges resolves hard cases.The first part of the paper will be a literature review of the positivist notion of Law by H.L.A. Harts, Dworkin theory and the Realist view of Law and morality. This will give us the various perspectives and definition of law and morality.Main discussion will focus on the rule of adjudication by review of some case law to analyse the aids and tools judges use to interpret the Law when faced with Gap that present situation of hard cases, also relevant literatures will be used to buttress the issues raised.I will try to feature some case laws from different jurisdictions to substantiate my argument that law job as practiced by judges is greatly influenced by other discipline and as such law can not be an autonomous discipline.Conclusion will be drawn from the premise of my arguments from featured case laws and literature review.