Ronald Dworkins Method - Assignment Example

Ronald Dworkin’s Method Insert Name Tutor Date Ronald Dworkin’s Method The main point in Ronald Dworkin’s theory of Constructive Interpretation of legal practice is the notion of Law as Integrity. This notion holds that as much as possible, judges should apply legal rights and duties bearing in mind that they were all created by the community as a unit and that they are an expression of the community’s conception of justice and fairness. According to Dworkin’s principle of law as integrity, suggestions of law may be acceptable if they conform to the principles of justice, fairness and procedural due process, which offer the best constructive interpretation of the community’s legal practice. Dworkin also insists that judges should apply these principles in rulings of all cases that they are faced with to ensure that every person faces a fair and just situation under the same standard, in other words, every person is treated equally. Integrity is explained as a both a legislative and adjudicative principle. A legislative principle is one that requires the law makers to ensure that laws are morally coherent. Law makers are required to observe the assumption that integrity is a separate ideal of politics, for politics and honors politics. These are the dimensions that makes is adjudicative1. Dworkin’s constructive interpretation occurs in three analytical stages which are pre-interpretative stage, interpretative stage and post interpretative stage. The pre interpretative stage is when the participant identifies the rules and standards that make up a practice. In the interpretative stage, the participant decides on which element to follow among those identified in the pre interpretative stage. At the post interpretative stage, the participant decides on what is really required for that particular practice so that he/she can offer the best for the practice. According to Dworkin, the past legal records must be part of the legal interpretation which must fit into the existing legal materials. Therefore a judge who observes law as integrity must impose order over doctrine but not to discover order based on the forces that gave rise to it2. Dworkin however concludes that the source of constrain in the interpretation is not the historical legal materials but the judges assurance of what is “fit”. This constrain comes from the judge’s individual needs to integrate their convictions about what is ‘fit’ to the assurance that their interpretation appears in its best light. To understand this concept, Dworkin gave the example of the Chain Novel where a number of novelists may agree to write each a chapter of a certain novel. The author of the second chapter may be constrained on what if fit and this may follow to the successive chapters. But because law as integrity considers the law as coherent, it requires judges to go through the entire law before they consider an interpretation3. To explain this, Dworkin gives the example of a case of McLoughlin V O’Brian (1983) where the claimant suffered emotional injury following an accident the killed his husband and three children. According to Dworkin, if the judge deciding the case was guided by the principle of law as integrity, he could have employed his moral convictions in deciding the McLoughlin deserves compensation if at all the community accepts that principle. Dworkin is also a supporter of the Theory of Equality which believes that human beings are responsible for their own choices in life and that natural gifts of intelligence and talent are moral luck which should not affect the distribution of resources in the society. This theory is supported by the principle that each person is entitle to equal respect and concern in the design of the society4. Ronald Dworkin also talks of rules versus principles where he explains that the two exist to protect and express rights in the legal order. Unlike the legal positivists, he argues that law cannot be thought of as just rules. This is because such a thought would induce distortion in legal reasoning. Dworkin therefore states that we need to distinguish rules from principles, policies and other standards which are not rules. In a legal system, Dworkin argues that policies should not be applied in legal reasoning and that principles are more important than the rules because they surround the structure of rules. He also argues that for the hard and difficult cases, judges should apply standards that do not work as rules but as principles. Dworkin believes that in addition to the rules, principles are also fundamental to law. Judges can use principles to fill gaps that are found in the rules and make a correct judgment even in the hard cases5. Dworkin also talks of rights versus the rules where he states that rights are more important than the rules in a legal system. He states that rights exist before the rules even though rules express rights. He believes they are important because rights develop from the legal system through the working out of the political morality. In his right thesis, he argues that a right legal answer is the one which grants and protects rights which are explicit or implicit in the integral values of the legal system. In summary, Ronald Dworkin theory is about law as integrity requiring judges to interpret the law in line with the consistent and communal moral principles in regard to justice and fairness6. Applying Ronald Dworkin’s theory in Walton stores v Maher case? In this case, Maher owned a building in Nowra on which he entered into a negotiation with Walton stores who wanted to lease the land. The Walton stores however wanted the existing building to be demolished and a new one erected. Relying on these presentations which were made before the contracted was completely entered into, Maher demolished and the building and started a new one. However the contract was never completed because Walton stores did not sign the lease. They had ordered their solicitors to slow the deal as they investigate whether the transaction would result into a good business. Meanwhile they allowed Maher to remain assured that the contract will be completed. Eventually Maher was left with a half demolished shopping center with no tenants7. According to the Australian law, this case is under promissory estoppel and was applied in the ruling of this case by the judges Mason CJ and Wilson J. The two held that if there is proven estoppel, it will give rise to equity in favour of the complainant and the court will do minimum equity which is just in the circumstance. Considering Dworkin’s method of justice and fairness, we will go by the point that it is a moral right to compensate for emotional injury suffered at the scene of tort, this well be fairness. Then to do justice, there is need for full compensation of the loss suffered. Therefore Waltons must compensate Maher for losses incurred (justice) and must pay additional exemplary damages for breaking a promise or otherwise behaving unconscionably (fairness). In accordance to the Dworkin principles, the judges could have thought of what the law requires which in this case found Waltons store guilty of a crime and the appeal was also rejected. Apart from considering what the law required, the judges could have considered the morality involved in that case. The judges however applying Australian contract law ruled that Waltons continue with the lease as they had promised. However considering the moral principles talked about by Dworkin, the judges should have considered the emotional injury that was caused to the plaintiff. It is obvious that Maher could have suffered a very great financial loss if he could have not taken a legal action against Walton stores. He could have lost his property which could have taken him so many years to recover or even to never recover at all. This is a circumstance that could cause one an emotional injury which could affect even members of his society. On the other hand, the court’s decision can be seen as forcing Walton stores to enter into a contract which they had decided not necessary. Naturally under such circumstances, the relationship between the two parties may not be as it was before. According to Dworkin’s definition of what is fair enough, he states that “there is a moral right to compensation for reasonably foreseeable injuries as long as that compensation does not impose an excessive financial burden on the defendant”. Therefore this case should have been solved through compensation. The law of justice should have ensure that Maher is compensated for the loss incurred due to demolishing of the existing building and the new one he had started off. This should have been then followed by law of fairness where he should have been compensated to the emotional injury that he had suffered when all that was transpiring. This is what the moral principles could have allowed. Still applying Dworkin’s theory of equality, it could have been important for Walton stores to pay additional exemplary damages for breaking a promise or otherwise behaving unconscionably, but “as long as that compensation does not impose an excessive financial burden on the defendant”. This implies that both persons will be offered equal respect and concern in the design of the society. This is because it could have been unacceptable to the members of the community to see Maher suffer emotionally for the damage caused and also to see Waltons stores suffer because of the huge financial burden they could have incurred as a result of compensating Maher. Therefore the judges could have used the Dworkin’s principles of justice and fairness to come up with a ruling that is fair enough for the two and one which is morally acceptable in the community. Bibliography Heshovitz, S., 2009, Exploring Law's Empire: The Jurisprudence of Ronald Dworkin, Oxford University press, London. Honeyball, S. & Walter, J., 1998, Integrity, community, and interpretation: a critical analysis of Ronald Dworkin's theory of law, Ashgate/Dartmouth, London. Guest, S., 2012, Ronald Dworkin: Third Edition, Stanford University Press, Italy. Clarke, J., 2010, Australian Contract Law: Walton Stores (Interstate) Ltd v Maher (1988) 76 ALR 513, retrieved on 26th November 2012 from http://www.australiancontractlaw.com/cases/walton.html Dworkin, R., 1986, Law's Empire, Oxford University Press, London. Gaffrey, P., 1996, Ronald Dworkin on law as integrity: rights as principles of adjudication, Meller University Press New York. Shklar, J., 1986, Legalism - Law, Morals and Political Trials, Harvard University Press, London. Read More