Dębska Hanna, Warczok Tomasz, Hidden influences. Some remarks on the social constraints of the autonomy of law

The autonomy of law or simply, the lawyers' ability to make relatively independent decisions – independent of external influences (political, economic, religious) – is usually presented as strictly individual. The issue is often defined as either with naive psychology, or in moral terms (strength of one's character). It is particularly relevant to the official remit of the influence of law, particularly in areas of its direct and indirect intersections with other fields, like politics, media, or religion (as in the case of the Constitutional Tribunal). Contrary to this, within the philosophy of law, a purely theoretic approach, this issue is treated in an overly abstract way, and often normatively (how things should be). For the discussion of a possible autonomy of law to make sense, we need to go back to the empirical reality, without falling prey to common-sense notions of human action as isolated practices of actors able to make fully rational and morally responsible decisions....