  MacCormick 1984 espouses a similar view of the role which coherence can play in adjudication and gives an indication of how we might think of the links between interpretation and coherence in legal reasoning. According to MacCormick, in deciding a case according to law, courts should first of all interpret the existing law in order to establish a coherent view of some branch of the law, and they should do this by showing how that branch of law is justified according to some coherent set of principles or values which underlie it. The court should then use this view of the law in order to justify its decision in a new case which comes before it. On such an approach, then, once courts establish what the settled law is, they should then interpret law in applying it to a new case such that their decision is in accord with the most coherent account which justifies that settled law.