ABSTRACT:
Over the last century, the study of jurisprudence had been filled with various debates on what is law and its relationship with morality. The former, according to Hart, were met with many literatures. The latter too were not short of academic contributions. These debates have not only enriched the study of jurisprudence, they also have an impact on our society as a whole. As Green rightly puts it, “we need such a theory, not to help decide cases or defend clients, but to understand ourselves, our culture, and our institutions, and to promote serious moral assessment of those institutions, and to promote serious moral assessment of those institutions, an assessment that must always take into account the conflicting realities of life”. Central to these debates is the legal positivism theory. Legal positivism “is a whole tradition of thought, spanning over two centuries, comprised of numerous contributions that often diverge, sometimes even conflict, on key issues”.