Law’s Empire

Law is not exhausted by any catalogue of rules or principles, each of which separately governs its own clearly demarcated domain of human conduct. Nor is it exhausted by any enumeration of public officials and their powers over the various parts of our lives. Law’s empire is defined by an approach, not by territory or power or process. We have examined this approach chiefly in appellate courts, where it is suitably arrayed for display; yet it must be present throughout our ordinary lives if it is to serve us well in the courts too. It is an interpretive, self-reflective approach addressed to politics in the broadest sense of that term.
Author: Ronald Dworkin