RELIGION AND SOCIETY

Religion and Society ~ 389 ~ (1790-1859) who said: “Law is what is imposed by a superior on an inferior, be that superior the king or the legislature.” While this appears to be a practicable theory, it is actually bereft of any valid logic, in that it accords the jurist a superior position without any necessary insistence on the criteria of justice being adhered to. But the human intellect could never concede that justice as a concept might be separated from the law. When the law imposes a judgement on someone, it is considered valid only when it is based on justice. As G.W. Paton observes, Austin’s definition of the law reduces it to the “command of a sovereign.”1 Although in practice, all over the world, laws are made and brought into force through political power, a number of eminent jurists have felt it necessary to carry out academic research on the principles of law. Their quest, however, has led them no further than the conclusion that, in this matter, arriving at an agreed upon criterion is a sheer impossibility. The reason is that the aim of the quest calls for the determination of legal norms on