In country X a fascist dictatorship, oppressive legal measures are used to defy people basic freedoms. In country Y, a liberal democracy, the legal system upholds capitalism and human rights. From the Perspective of your approved topic (Critical Legal Stu

were doing it as agents of the political process constrained to follow the law in some way” . Overall these views about law and politics being one and the same indicate that the law cannot be said to be anything more than a reflection of political power this is valid as the law has on several occasions seemed to favour certain groups over others this can be seen for example by the methods used to scrutinize parliament as often they are ineffective in actually monitoring the actions of parliament, further the use of hierarchy which is also proposed by Duncan Kennedy being present in so many aspects of the legal system particularly the legal doctrine in the from of teaching in law schools, the hierarchy of the courts and even the hierarchy of the judiciary highly implies that the law is vastly politically power motivated as if this was not the case then surely so much hierarchy which furthers those at the top interests more than those at the bottom would not operate so significantly within the legal system. However on the hand it could be argued that the law is not just a reflection of political power as the power given to the judiciary is limited given that they are able to decide the majority of cases based on existing case law, and it is only in limited cases that they are given greater authority, equally the presence of hierarchy could be contended not to mean that a certain groups interests are being favoured over another’s but simply a system necessary to ensure the effective operation of the legal system and could be said to be based on skills and ability rather than political power such as those who are members of the house of lords as opposed to a district judge is most likely due to the skills and attributes that they had more than other candidates.

Moreover the majority of CLS theorists assert that the rule of law is nothing more than a theory and is instead a falsity created as a means of the law reflecting political power by advancing the interests of certain power groups over the less advantaged. Primarily a great deal of the literature on critical legal studies proposes that liberal legal and political theory are “incoherent”, “internally inconsistent,” and “self contradictory” . Prominently it is contended that it is impractical for the state to comply with the need of responding to both the necessities of the rule of law and the requests of liberal political morality There are three primary principles of this argument within CLS literature for why it is impossible for a liberal rule of law to exist; one there cannot  be an unbiased system for the enacting of ‘legal rules in the context of moral, religious and political pluralism”, and given that it is a requirement of the liberal rule of law for such a system to operate thus proving the impossibility of the rule of law support for this contention is provided by Roberto Unger, secondly there can be no neutrally conducted procedure to allow legal rules to be analyzed in the context of moral, religious and political pluralism, this argument has two branches the radical one contending that legal rules are intrinsically absent of meaning and can be composed of content only through a process that is not neutral, this view is outlined in the work of Gary Peller and James Boyle, the second branch does not believe that legal rules can be said to be devoid of meaning however they counter that their interpretation requires a process which cannot be considered neutral, this is supported by Roberto Unger in Knowledge and Politics, the consensus amongst both branches though is that liberal rule of law is defeated due to the absence of a neutral process of legal interpretation which is its whole purpose of existence. The third contention of CLS theorists is that the distinction between law and politics which is considered to be of vital importance to liberalism in their continued neutrality of the legal process is in itself a contravention of neutralism because it allows a bias against beliefs about the good and right , thus attempts to protect the neutrality of the law which is crucial to maintaining the rule of law ultimately becomes biased and contravenes the liberal principle of neutrality, this is supported by Mark Kelman.  Returning to the first contention Unger in Knowledge and politics contended that the major deficiency which prevents the operation of liberal rule of law is the failure of liberalism to come to a logical understanding of the relationship between rules and values in social life , and this in turn provides the two contradictions to liberal political and legal theory which Unger contends, that firstly of the law failing to have a process satisfying the need of  neutral interpretation and secondly the lack of neutral interpretation of legal rules. Consequently many of the academic arguments within CLS literature that support the theory that liberal rule of law is impossible is a result of Unger’s contention that liberal legal and political theory does not allow a logical account of rules and values. Unger’s contentions are plausible given that the law is largely criticised for not being able to legislate based on legal rules and morality and social values in an unbiased form, rather it is largely contended that morality and value is given no importance as what is largely adhered to it legal rules, this would indicate that the law cannot be said to be anything more than a reflection of political power as the lack of neutrality which is requirement of the rule of law destroys the whole concept of a liberal rule of law thus resulting in a system where the law is based on pursuing political interests rather than the interests of the larger society. However it could be contended that the concept of impossibility of the rule of law does not mean that the law is a reflection of political power as it can be said that it would be impractical for the law to always neutralize the enactment and interpretation of legal rules in the context of moral, religious and political pluralism, as the law is designed to act in the interests of society as whole not to satisfy all interests of society as to do is impossible. According to Peller “the pretension of legal practice to find determinate meaning in written texts is one aspect of legal ideology and has largely been surpassed at least in superficial respects by the dominant versions of legal thought since the 1950s”, Similarly James Boyle in favor of the contention of the law being devoid of any meaning and instead being full of content thorough an unnatural process states that “words do not have core meanings”. These contentions are valid considering that in applying legal rules difficulties arise in recognizing their true meanings and the result can be to apply something which was not the intention of the law in creating the rule, this is evidenced for example by the difficulty judges face in statutory interpretation as often judges are unclear of the true meanings of statutes and have to resort to one the three means of statutory interpretation in doing so they do not necessarily follow the former intention of parliament in making the statute and can often depend on the facts of the case, arguably this can be considered an unnatural process given that there is no single set outcome, therefore this would suggest that the law is a reflection of political power as law can be said to be distinct of natural meaning and instead the content seems to be full of artificial aspects based on political thought since it is designed by parliament. Although arguably the law could be said not be a reflection of political power as despite the inconsistencies of interpretation, the law is decided upon legal rules as well as the circumstances on the case and thus the rules cannot be said to be solely politically motivated.

Furthermore CLS Theorists assert that the law is substantially indeterminate. Legal concepts and policies can be considered indeterminate if the regulations are full of considerable gaps, discrepancy and ambiguities ; these are commonly present though according to critical theorists in even straightforward cases due to the existence of a number of alternative rules to resolve disputes which is without any apparent preference of one over another. This can be shown by the example that an owner who extracts extensive vegetables from their land to sell to people, has the ability to be able to claim an unqualified right to the support of their land as well as the protection of their land against the nuisance of unreasonable land use. However there is no reference to a preferred rule amongst the two so which should preside? Further how should ‘reasonable land use’ be defined?. Such are the usual problems present in the open questions posed by legal scrutiny of disagreements. Additionally indeterminacy occurs by the existence of difference within the fundamental standards of the law. CLS theorists have been able to demonstrate using traditional legal disputes it is highly probable to result in a number of conclusions for separate cases. The decision reached however which be more related to the social context in which they argued and determined rather than due to the procedure of legal reasoning. Additionally scholars propose that the abstruse and complicated character of legal reasoning overshadows the laws indeterminacy, which can be traced back to precise structures present in the law. As for example critical theorists have identified that little, simply stated set of arguments and counter arguments.’  are continuously reused in briefs as well as judicial opinions, further the fact that the courts have the capacity to be able to choose among predictable arguments and important arguments is the most significant aspect of the laws indeterminacy This is supported by Duncan Kennedy who argues that diverse legal doctrines revolve around a constitution of dual pairs of contrasting notions which all enable a claim upon perceptive and official types of interpretation , Self and other, private and public, subjective and objective, freedom and control are examples of such pairs, particularly critical academics exhibit the pressure of opposing ideas on the advance of legal doctrines throughout history. Kennedy himself conceded that the psychological and social dimensions of the judicial role given even a critically inspired judge a sense of constraint, and experience vividly described by some sitting judges. Further this indeterminacy of the law is evidenced by Roberto Unger who referred to the fact that the expansion of constitutional law and constitutional theory during the late nineteenth and twentieth century demonstrates the account of indeterminacy through generalizations. These views indicate that the law is a reflection of political power and this is compelling given that the law is full of discrepancies based on its indeterminacy so that decisions are able to be based on a number of unfair considerations as opposed to simply based on pure legal reasoning. Arguably though the indeterminacy of the law could be said to be no more than the legal systems attempts to satisfy the general society as a whole by offering a range of options to satisfy their dispute depending on the context, and so the law is a not reflection of political power.

Additionally CLS theorists assert that the essence of legal resources are intrinsically contradictory , for instance the way in which the law is structured there is a sequence of dual oppositions present within the system such as the opposition between individualism and altruism , or partiality for stringent rules and partiality for broad standards.  Duncan Kennedy in support of this asserted that ‘Often opinions or doctrines or whole areas of law contained contradictions and gaps and ambiguities, and what the judges were doing really couldn't be adequately explained as just consistently following through what the legal materials required them to do’, he further went on to explain that many theorists attempted to organize this aspect of contradiction applying opposing visions such as formality against informality which are constantly in battle within the legal system and thus makes it inconsistent because there is no determinate answer, rather sometimes one supersedes and sometimes the other. Furthermore Unger has focused on the contradictions present between rights of choices and rules designed to ensure the successful gratification of those rights, as the importance of a right to choice is restricted by the absence of successful gratification of those rights, which has steadily intruded the legal perception and altered the present-day law. Thus it seems apparent that the contradictory nature of the legal system means that the law is a reflection of political power, this is compelling given that there is often discrepancies in the range of legal rules in an area without any clear or constant application of one over the other. However the law could be said not to be a reflection of political power as it is impossible for one principle to be responsible for an array variation in legal form within the legal system, but this does not mean the law is contradictory unless it can be proven that the diverse principles required to grant a logical reform are irreconcilable, as stated by Andrew Altman “it would be a mistake to describe the situation as one of contradiction, unless one could also argue cogently for the premise that the different principles needed to provide a rational reconstruction are logically incompatible with one another”.

On the other a newer view has emerged amongst some CLS theorists that rejects the destruction of a distinction between and law and politics and instead asserts that the two work together to allow the effective exercise of the legal system as without the operation of them both the legal system would collapse, and so consequently the presence of politics within the legal system is merely to maintain a strong legal system based on more than just legal principles. As evidenced by Andrew Altman stating“ a system of law which does not tilt in favour of or against any conception of good or the right is simply not possible…the liberal rule of law demands moral and political views that are capable of accommodation and compromise”.

It appears from the evidence provided by CLS theorists that overall the law is a reflection of political power as evidenced by the place of hierarchy in the law, the impossibility of a liberal rule of law, as well as the indeterminate and contradictory nature of the law. This is further apparent from the involvement of parliament in passing legislation as ultimately politics has the upper hand in deciding which laws are given authorisation to enact, resultantly politics has vastly undermined the legal system rather than working alongside it to make it more efficient .

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