TY - JOUR
T1 - Legal Realism, Common Courtesy, and Hypocrisy
AU - Bybee, Keith J.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2005/2
Y1 - 2005/2
N2 - In the USA, courts are publicly defined by their distance from politics. Politics is said to be a matter of interest, competition, and compromise. Law, by contrast, is said to be a matter of principle and impartial reason. This distinction between courts and politics, though common, is also commonly doubted – and this raises difficult questions. How can the courts at once be in politics yet not be of politics? If the judiciary is mired in politics, how can one be sure that all the talk of law is not just mummery designed to disguise the pursuit of partisan interests? In one sense, an ambivalent public understanding of the courts and suspicions of judicial hypocrisy pose a threat to judicial and democratic legitimacy. Yet, in another sense, public ambivalence and suspected hypocrisy may actually open up space for the exercise of legal power. I illustrate and critique the enabling capacities of ambivalence and hypocrisy by drawing an analogy to common courtesy.
AB - In the USA, courts are publicly defined by their distance from politics. Politics is said to be a matter of interest, competition, and compromise. Law, by contrast, is said to be a matter of principle and impartial reason. This distinction between courts and politics, though common, is also commonly doubted – and this raises difficult questions. How can the courts at once be in politics yet not be of politics? If the judiciary is mired in politics, how can one be sure that all the talk of law is not just mummery designed to disguise the pursuit of partisan interests? In one sense, an ambivalent public understanding of the courts and suspicions of judicial hypocrisy pose a threat to judicial and democratic legitimacy. Yet, in another sense, public ambivalence and suspected hypocrisy may actually open up space for the exercise of legal power. I illustrate and critique the enabling capacities of ambivalence and hypocrisy by drawing an analogy to common courtesy.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33747891799&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1191/1743872105lw249oa
DO - 10.1191/1743872105lw249oa
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33747891799
VL - 1
SP - 75
EP - 102
JO - Law, Culture and the Humanities
JF - Law, Culture and the Humanities
SN - 1743-8721
IS - 1
ER -