Legal formalism

Legal formalism, also commonly known as “black letter law,” refers to an intellectual perspective that asserts the absolute autonomy of law through a separation of law and politics, while positing the law's immanent intelligibility and coherence. Formalist approaches seek determinate legal outcomes through a process of deductive logic where the premises mobilized and conclusions reached are sourced internally, within the law's “immanent moral rationality,” rather than derived from discourses external to law