“Same As It Ever Was”: Rethinking the Politics of Legal Interpretation
“Same As It Ever Was”: Rethinking the Politics of Legal Interpretation
“Same As It Ever Was”: Rethinking the Politics of Legal Interpretation. McGill Law Journal 34: 603 – 652.
Abstract: This article, which places the development of the law-and-interpretation or legal hermeneutics school of legal scholarship in historical and political context, is meant to serve as an accessible introduction to the literature on legal hermeneutics. The author situates the law-and-interpretation debate in the context of intellectual developments in the humanities and social sciences, and points out some of its empirical and theoretical limitations. While a great deal of the literature on legal hermeneutics either ignores the politics of interpretation or deals with it superficially, claiming it to be outside of the scope of inquiry of those interested in the field of legal study, the author suggests that politics is in fact constitutive of the very act of interpretation.
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Date Published: 1989
Publisher: McGill Law Journal
Publisher Website: http://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/