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Q ‘As a judge I am sworn to apply, not my conceptions of morality, but the law of the land’.
(Judge Keen in Lon Fuller’s “The Case of the Spluncean Explorers”, Harvard Law Review, Vol.61 (4), February 1949).

Discuss in relation to how judges interpret and apply statutes and how considerations of morality may be involved in the process.


A statute in its basic sense is a formal, written law of a country or state, written and enacted by parliament or a legislative authority.
The responsibility of applying these statutes is left up to the Courts of that country. Unfortunately the meanings are not always clear and are left to the interpretation of the Judges.

The issue of how judges interpret and apply statutes, how those interpretations and applications might be influenced by considerations of what is morally acceptable, has been heavily debated for time immemorial by some of the worlds most profound and prolific Jurisprudence Scholars.
Some theories include notions that law is separate from justice and morality, and are commands of a legally unlimited sovereign, backed by sanction and consequence. (John Austin’s Command theory in: The Province of Jurisprudence Determined 1832)
Another theory is that there is no inherent or necessary connection between law and morality as the existence of legal rights and duties may be devoid of any moral justification. (H.L.A. Hart’s, Legal Positivism theory in: The Concept of Law 1961)
That every legal action has a moral dimension and that it is not a descriptive concept but an interpretive concept which combines jurisprudence and adjudication. (Ronald Dworkin’s Interpretive theory in: Law’s Empire 1986)
No single theory has been adopted in English law as the only rule to statutory interpretation. Over time, judges have developed certain practices of statutory interpretation and application. These practices are developed through...