What should be the function of the Judge in a modern democracy?
Michel Foucault once said ‘we who seek to build democracy must not be bound by the false assertion that the rule of law is democratic’. This statement is illustrative of two things: primarily that the rationale at the heart of law can conflict with understood conceptions of democracy. Secondly that the interlinking between the role of the judiciary and the rule of law can open up avenues of criticism on what might be perceived as the traditional function of the judge. The role of the judiciary has often been recognised as somewhat paradoxical within a modern democracy because of the variety of sources and times from which doctrines date.
