SOCIAL FACTICITY AND THE LAW: A SOCIAL EXPERT’S EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF

HE POWER AND EFFECTIVITY of law are often attributed to law’s ~ privileged relationship with the coercive powers of the sovereign, a-A- relationship constituted to a large extent through the majestic rituals enacted in courtrooms. That the ancient rituals of determining truth, assigning blame and decreeing punishment are indeed an important part of the law cannot be denied. This article, however, demonstrates that the effectivity of law is also accomplished through a number of quite humdrum techniques and procedures that bear little trace of the sovereign’s majesty. Perhaps precisely because of their lowly status as mere technicalities and unspoken rules, these procedures work quite effectively to create loyalty to law’s power not only among the accused or among the populace that observes the legal rituals but even among those who appear in the role of co-sovereigns: the ’experts ’ who are admitted to testify precisely because law supposedly respects the authority and knowledge of their extra-legal, autonomous disciplines. That loyalty to law’s sovereignty is silently created not only in but even by the very people invited into court to ’change the system ’ by enlightening the court o