Law, Morality and the Private Domain

Book excerpt: Are judges morally accountable? Is legal validity value-free? Do animals have rights? These are some of the questions considered in this collection of essays. Moral problems, argues Professor Raymond Wacks, pervade the legal system, and he shows how the judicial function, the sources of legitimacy, and the protection of rights have an inescapable ethical dimension. The second part of the book focuses on the private domain and the legal concept of privacy. The extent to which the law ought to preserve a distinctly private realm is a pressing concern in our surveillance society in which personal information is increasingly collected, transferred, and stored. This controversial and difficult subject is one into which Professor Wacks, a leading expert in this field, is uniquely qualified to offer important insights. Raymond Wacks' analysis will be of interest not only to lawyers, legal philosophers, and students of law, but also to the general reader seeking an understanding of the jurisprudential underpinning of rights and moral values, their legal recognition, and practical application. Raymond Wacks is Professor of Law and Legal Theory at the University of Hong Kong. He is an international authority on the legal protection of privacy, and has also published widely in the field of legal theory.