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Do Judges Make Law?

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Submitted By rajibubiswas
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Do Judges Make Law?
A law is an obligatory rule of conduct imposed and enforced by the sovereign. Therefore the law is the body of principles recognized and enforced by the state in the application of justice. The law is mainly made by a parliament, a legislative body given power by the constitution to draft law. However in the last few decades there has been a notion that judges make law. A judge is a public official appointed or elected to hear and decide legal matters in court, Judges exercise judicial power. This involves making binding decisions affecting the rights and duties of citizens and institutions. In carrying out this task, a judge can use any of the following three sources of Ugandan law, Acts of Parliament or legislation, the common law, or previous decisions by the courts and a constitution

Do judges make law?
To ask the question “do judges make law?” Implies that perhaps to some extent they do make law. A great deal of controversy has centered on this question as to how far judges can legitimately make law although a great number such as lord Bentham have referred to it as a “childish fiction” thus judges cannot make law. Many other scholars more so those that are followers of the realist school of thought have placed absolute emphasis on the discretion of judges and relegated the "rules" to an obscure position. It can however not be denied looking closely at the present legal system that judges have played a dominant role in moulding the doctrines of the present law for example the common law which is also referred to as judge made law.
Nevertheless today no informed observer disputes that judges do especially those of the Supreme Court make law. In the same way the likes of lord Denning molded the doctrines of the law of contract and otherwise. To answer if judge make law lets its crucial to analyse how they do so.
The application of

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