What happens when political power combines to create laws that are repugnant to basic decency in states that have honest functioning courts of law? This module looks at this issue philosophically, before modernity arrives, in Bonham’s Case, and as well after the American statutory state arrives in the 1900s. How do judges in modern times deal with repugnant statutory power? Are the methods of dealing with the statute different from before, and what do they say about the degree to which positivism (obedience) is the order of the day?