David Dyzenhaus is a Professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Toronto. His work focuses on the rule of law and legal theory and he has written three books on this topic: "Hard Cases in Wicked Legal Systems: South African Law in the Perspective of Legal Philosophy" (OUP, 1991); "Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt in Weimar" (OUP, 1997); and "Judging the Judges, Judging Ourselves: Truth, Reconciliation and the Apartheid Legal Order" (Hart, 1998).
His lectures "The Constitution of Law" will advance the claim that a morally infused understanding of the rule of law underpins not only the constitutions of the Commonwealth, but law itself. The four lectures will deal with several areas in which this claim seems most fragile: national security, states of emergency, privative clauses, and the relationship between international law and domestic law. Dyzenhaus will argue that the rule of law reveals its potential precisely when it is most put under stress and that it is only the grip of legal positivism that gets in the way of this insight. He will show throughout that since 9/11, courts across the Commonwealth, including the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords, seem to have succumbed to positivism's grip, and have thus strayed from their constitutional duty to uphold the rule of law.
THE CONSTITUTION OF LAW comprises the following lectures:
Lecture 1: THE MORAL RESOURCES OF THE RULE OF LAW:-
Monday 1st November 2004 in LG19 (Faculty of Law), 5.30 - 6.30 pm
Lecture 2: CONSTITUTING THE LEGISLATURE:-
Tuesday 2nd November 2004 in LG19 (Faculty of Law), 5.30 - 6.30 pm
Lecture 3: TAKING THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE SERIOUSLY:-
Wednesday 3rd November 2004 in LG19 (Faculty of Law), 5.30 - 6.30 pm
Lecture 4: THE UNITY OF PUBLIC LAW:-
Thursday 4th November 2004 in LG19 (Faculty of Law), 5.30 - 6.30 pm