Responsa untuk Ulangan 16:18

All other lawyers and judges find themselves before a book of legal standards, the legal codex. Once the judge finds the proper subsection of the law and fits his judicial ruling to it, he will have discharged his responsibilities as a judge and could be called upstanding and just, in the following sense: he will have justly suited his ruling to the legal standards before him, even if his ruling is not in principle just. Such a judge is not under an obligation to–and may even be proscribed from–ruling on a case in ways that exceed the letter of the law. Instead, he must rule in accordance with the standards that are explicitly before him However, the Israelite judge is under an obligation to judge the people with just law, as is written, they will judge the people with just law (Devarim 16:18) – “this sets forth a requirement to appoint judges expert in the law and righteous in their behavior” (Rashi’s commentary to the Torah, there). They are also to issue rulings that are just law, which is to say, rulings that are just in principle and not merely formally. And their rulings have to be right. This accords with the directive stated by our sages: “Verify the judgment and only afterward, implement it” (Sanhedrin 7b). All of this sets out a basis for a judicial obligation to rule on cases in ways that exceed the letter of the law, and to do still more than that in fulfillment of the standard to follow the way of the good and keep to the path of the just (Mishlei 2:20; Bava Metsi’a 99b). This is the ‘law code’ set before a judge when he sits down to rule on the cases that come before him.