Judges as law maker.

Byline: SHAYAAN WADOOD-Lahore

The judiciary plays a significant role in the making of law, mostly it's the legislation passing a law but in some circumstances the judiciary does play a limited role to accommodate new situations. William Blackstone argued about judiciary as they are not elected representatives and lack legitimacy, he states 'The role of a judge is to declare what law is and not to make it '.

However, the judiciary does make law in circumstances when there is no statute, case law which could fit in the situation and solve the case at that time the judge gives a decision which is later written down and those decisions are called Judicial precedent.

The role of judiciary was briefly explained by Lord Reid in his book 'the judge as law maker', in this book he stated ' we do not believe in fairy tales anymore, so we must accept the fact that for better or worse judges do make law, and tackle the...