“All laws as well as all contracts” say the court, “may be controlled in their operation and effect by general, fundamental maxim of common law”. The bar principles state that “no one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or take advantage of his own wrong, or to fraud any claim upon his own iniquity or to acquire property by his own crime”.
The court decides accordingly that the murderer should not inherit the property even though according to law (in the legal positivist sense) he should inherit it. But following Hart's concept of law, the murderer should inherit the property of his murdered grandfather. Critics reject Hart's idea of law because community's morality according to Dworkin moulds societal values and ensures that human existence is harmoniously, peacefully and orderly.
Dworkin is also critical when he said that no master rule, such as Hart's rule of recognition is available to distinction legal from non-legal principles. A judge must decide whether a principle is part of the community's morality; and once he has decided that it is, he has decided that it is law”. What this means is that the judges should consult what they believe to be the majority moral opinion in deciding a contested issue and give their decision accordingly. To discover a community's true morality does not require one taking opinion polls or consulting the general public, as Hart's concept of law would have us believe. True community morality does not require rules of recognition because of its myopic tendencies.
Dworkin again deals wit h Hart's legal rules, which according to Hart makes judges decide cases following a particular rule of law. Dworkin rejects this view and gave an example of an automobile manufacturer who had signed a contract with a buyer to the effect that liability of that manufacturer in case of defect in the car would be limited to making good the defective Parts. But the buyer Mr. Dick, had an accident as a result of the mechanical defect in the car, and he was demanding that the manufacturer should be responsible for the medical and other expenses incurred by those injured in the accident since it was caused by the mechanical defects of the vehicle.
In making this demand, effort must be made to understand that the buyer was not asking that any particular rule of law or the agreement earlier reached be applied. The buyer according to Dworkin is making demand based on justice. The buyer was only asking for justice not only on his car but also on those injured in the accident as a result of mechanical defect in the car. The trial judge in his fair judgment decided the case in Mr. Dick's favor.
In deciding the case in favor of Mr. Dick, we must understand that the court decided the case on justice, because the court is not an institution of inequality and injustice. “The courts will not permit themselves to the enforcement of a bargain in which one party has unjustly taken advantage of the economic necessities of the other”9. What Dworkin is telling us is that these standards, applied by judges are not legal rules nor part of what the legal positivists consider as law or what Hart would want us take legal rules.
To Dworkin therefore, these rules are legal principles not legal rules. Against the backdrop, Dworkin made a distinction between legal principles and legal rules, which we can see, was not distinguished in Hart's concept of law.
According to Hart's concept of law, legal rules are applicable in an “all or nothing” fashion”, that is to say that either the rule applies to a given case or it does not. If it suitable with the case, it has to be applied in decision-making, and if it does not then it should not be applied at all. But legal principles from Dworkin's view do not have the character of all-or-nothing fashion. Legal principles unlike Hart's legal rules, only inclines a judge to decide a case in a certain direction by providing him with additional reasons for doing so. But one thing is certain, legal principles do not unlike legal rules necessitate a decision. A legal principle only inclines and suggests to the judge the direction in which he should judge the case, and in most cases community interest is used to determine the case.
Another difference between legal rules and legal principles is that legal principles which have dimension of weight or importance with regards to legal rules. Dworkins also criticized the legal positivist, for saying that judges are not bound by any standards in a situation where there is no clearly established legal rule. In this light, judge simple use their discretion to decide the case by what amounts to a fresh piece of legislation. But Dworkins maintains that judges are as bound by legal principles as they are led by legal rules.
