Legal Realism
The Courts put life into the dead words of statute. – Gray
The realists consider Courts to be sovereign.
According to Salmond, rules recognised and acted on by Courts are law. This definition in suitable to case law, however, it does not concede that Statutory Law is law even before it has been recognised or applied by Courts.
In addition to this:
1. Realists tend to overestimate the vagueness of formal written laws.
2. Realists do not consider that the fraction of cases in which new law is formulated is miniscule.
3. The focus on Courts and case-law ignores the fact that law is not primarily judge-made: if that was the case, no one would be able to predict what judges would decide.
4. Realists do not appreciate the fact that most situations in which law governs the conduct of people do not find their way to Court.
American realist jurists have been rather sceptical about the value of statutory law on its own: statutes deal with classes of people and they rarely provide for individual anomalies – they are almost always left to a judge’s discretion.
