The other day as I sat watching the Motley theatre group perform Antigone on stage, I was constantly reminded of the law school staple of the Hart-Fuller debate. The tussle between positive law and natural law has been around since long and will continue to be so. Thus, as Antigone defied the law of Thebes and went ahead to bury her dead brother with honour, Creon argued for how he as the king had the obligation of ensuring that the law is adhered to in order to bring order to the kingdom, and in keeping with this ideology he executed his niece Antigone.
Those in the legal business pick sides in the debate, consciously or otherwise, with some sticking to the black letter of the law and others going beyond. But those not in this business are also engaged in the debate. A look at popular culture is a good indication of this.
Cinema based on the Holocaust and freedom struggles, among others, showcase instances of human conscience urging one to go beyond the law. Schindler’s List, the Reader, what have you. There are of course scores of movies and books and documentaries that I’ve left out of this post, which too engage in the debate.
And it’s important for this debate to be carried out in every possible forum, not just in the court room. It’s important, in my opinion, for the subjects of law to understand that the laws that they are ruled by are not infallible. This is not to say that there ought not to be obedience of every law one has a grouse with. Only that as a society, the obligation we owe to the rest of the society sometimes trumps the one we owe the State; an understanding that stood in good stead while countries fought for independence from colonizers, and Jews were helped from the wrath of a tyrant. So if in the future we are faced with equally difficult choices to make, these debates would have gone a long way in sensitizing us enough to use good judgment.
The beauty of the debate between natural and positive law is that it’s one of those debates that can be carried out in Ivory Towers, courtrooms, coffee shops and street corners with equal passion and relevance.
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