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well wouldn't the point of the rhetorical construct of natural law be to give you recourse to a standard or idea of a standard that's not identical with the existing legal system so that you could argue a case such as dk's? and there need be no agreement that the "natural law" that was referred to actually *existed*---it's more a normative thing, an idea. such things move around over time with the what they're used to oppose.
it's kinda hard to figure out what natural law could possibly be outside of a religious framework. lots of folk have tried to put it somewhere, say what it is. it hasn't worked out so well.
but as one of a set of rhetorical tools that can be used to criticize or challenge an existing system or law, it's a useful fiction. there are others which are probably as or more useful for thinking about stuff. but pragmatically, since you have the idea of natural law built into the constitution itself (as an effect but no matter) i can see the appeal of using the term.
i can't see the appeal of claiming that there *is* natural law or that (within a religious framework) if there is one that human types know what it is.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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