We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
A fourth consequence. Nor can the authority to interpret the laws devolve upon the criminal judges, for the same reason that they are not legislators. The judges have not received the laws from our fore-fathers as if they were a family tradition or a will which leaves its inheritors no duty but that of obedience. Rather, they receive them from the living society or from the sovereign which represents it as the legitimate repository of the current sum of the will of the whole of society. The judges do not receive the laws as obligations of an ancient oath, which is void because it enchains the wills of those not yet born, and iniquitous because it reduces men from a state of society to the state of a herd. Rather, they receive them as the result of a tacit or express oath which the united wills of the subjects have made to the sovereign, as the bonds necessary to curb and control the domestic turbulence of particular interests. Such is the laws' physical and real authority. Who, then, shall be the rightful interpreter of the law? Shall it be the sovereign, that is the repository of the current will of all, or the judge, whose task is merely that of enquiring whether a given man has committed an unlawful act or not?
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
