Most all rules of law are at least indirectly hinged to the existence of a fair, impartial, and efficient judiciary. Perhaps more than all of them, however, is the tenet that ‘all persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law’. This particular rule of law rests almost solely on the discipline of the judiciary and has raised the important question of how, precisely, judges make their decisions. Boundless theories concerning themselves with questions about how judges decide cases and how they should decide cases have filled the minds of legal scholars for centuries. Of these theories, two schools of thought have generally competed for their allegiance. This paper will highlight the essence of these normative theories and attempt to distinguish the most accurate conceptualisation.