“Conventionalism makes two postinterpretive, directive claims. The first is positive: that judges must respect the established legal conventions of their community except in rare circumstances. It insists, in other words, that they must treat as law what convention stipulates as law. Since convention in Britain establishes that acts of Parliament are law, a British judge must enforce even acts of Parliament he considers unfair or unwise. This positive part of conventionalism most plainly corresponds to the popular slogan that judges should follow the law and not make new law in its place. The second claim, which is at least equally important, is negative. It declares that there is no law — no right flowing from past political decisions — apart from the law drawn from those decisions by tech-niques that are themselves matters of convention, and therefore that on some issues there is no law either way.” Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire 116 (1986).
conventionalism
conventionalism. A jurisprudential conception of legal practice and tradition holding that law is a matter of respecting and enforcing legal and social rules.
