To appreciate the significance of [the role of judges in society] it is necessary to free ourselves wholly from the erroneous conception that there can be first a society which then gives itself laws. This erroneous conception is basic to the constructivist rationalism which from Descartes and Hobbes through Rousseau and Bentham down to contemporary logical positivism has blinded students to the true relationship between law and government.It is only as a result of individuals observing certain common rules that a group of men can live together in those orderly relations which we call a society. It would therefore probably be nearer the truth if we inverted the plausible and widely held idea that law derives from authority and rather thought of all authority as deriving from law - not in the sense that the law appoints authority, but in the sense that authority commands obedience because (and so long as) is enforces a law presumed to exist independently of it and resting on a diffused opinion of what is right.
Not all law can therefore be the product of legislation; but power to legislate presupposed the recognition of some common rules; and such rules which underlie the power to legislate may also limit that power. No group is likely to agree on articulated rules unless its members already hold opinions that coincide in some degree. Such coincidence of opinion will thus have to precede explicit agreement on articulated rules of just conduct, although not agreement on particular ends of action. Persons differing in their general values may occasionally agree on, and effectively collaborate for, the achievement of particular concrete purposes. But such agreement on particular ends will never suffice for forming that lasting order which we call a society.
--F.A. Hayek, Law Legislation and Liberty, Vol I Rules and Order</>, Chapter 5 "Nomos: The Law of Liberty"
Bump.