Dialogue, Finality and Legality

Abstract

The metaphor of ‘democratic dialogue’ suggests a process of iterative exchange between courts and legislatures, in which both help to define the scope of rights and hence specify the political arrangements required to secure them. Beyond this, however, the metaphor is understood in various ways. In an earlier piece, I suggested that we should not be distracted by the metaphor of dialogue and the debates about its accuracy and significance. 1 My thought was that we should dig beneath the terminological issue, and absorb whatever insights stem from the rich literature on the subject. In doing so, however, it has become increasingly apparent that the dialogue metaphor is open to such divergent views about the judicial and legislative roles, and is in competition with a more well weathered set of theories on this relationship, that the question of its precise meaning must be answered squarely.