To effectively and safely use a tool, it is important to know how it works, what it is good for, and what it does when used. This course invites students of law to deepen their legal understanding by thinking about law in this way, asking what is special about law and legal reasoning, what they are good for, and how using them impacts our social, economic, and political lives.
The first half of the course asks what is good about the law and what makes particular legal rules good or bad. It does so by looking at the core values underpinning the law of liberal democracies–countries whose political, social, and economic structures resemble those of New Zealand. Apart from developing a vocabulary that would help students interpret, and criticise the law, this part of the course also maps the different ways people think of the purpose of law, why it is valuable, and what standard is appropriate for evaluating its rules.
The second half of the course builds on these foundations in exploring some fundamental questions any judge and lawyer must grapple with at some point in their career: do our values matter when we interpret the law, use it, and develop it; should they; how does law relate to other normative systems, such as everyday moral rules; is law whatever the New Zealand Parliament says it is; is it whatever judges say it is; must the law be just and moral (and what happens if it is not); what is the value of the rule of law, and should we hold on to it in all circumstances; should people always obey the law; should judges always follow it in their decisions?