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According to a positivist tradition, a law or a norm has a status of law if a recognized human authority declares it to be a law. Who do we say recognized human authority? Precisely, we are distinguishing it from spiritual, from a deity. The content of law from a positivist perspective is irrelevant. From positivist perspective what we are concerned is whether or not the law was enacted by the sovereign. Morality is irrelevant. So, the law is valid if the sovereign says it’s valid. For a law to be valid within the positivist tradition, a law must have the correct pedigree. What we mean by the pedigree is that the sovereign must follow the established procedures for law making. Positivist access the validity of law by asking two questions, Was the law created by the correct authority? Did the correct authority follow the appropriate procedures? A law is valid only if it is a YES to both the questions. The beginning of 19th Centiry might be taken as marking the begi...

Montesquieu said that law making was the job of the legislature, and taking administrative and a policy decision was the job of the executive.  This approach was in accordance with the positivist school of jurisprudence propounded by the British jurists Bentham and Austin , who placed the centre of gravity of the legal system on statutory law, that is, law made by the legislature. In contrast, sociological jurisprudence, which originated in Continental Europe in the late 19 th  century was developed in U.S.A. by Roscoe Pound , the realist school, etc. and sought to shift the centre of gravity in the legal system from statute to judge made law. Judicial review is the corner stone of constitutionalism. Constitutionalism denotes a constitution not only of powers but also restraints as well. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar , who chaired the drafting committee of our Constituent Assembly, had described the provision related to the same as the ‘heart of the Constitution’. ...