Law
Justice
Justice refers to the fair and impartial treatment of individuals according to the law. It involves upholding rights, punishing wrongdoings, and ensuring equality under the legal system. The concept of justice is fundamental to maintaining order and protecting the rights of individuals within a society.
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10 Key excerpts on "Justice"
eBook - PDF- Suri Ratnapala(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
In Chapter 7, I addressed the idea that the law by its nature is a moral institution – that it has what Fuller called an inner morality and what Dworkin termed integrity. This chapter will consider a broader range of relations between law and Justice. 355 356 RIGHTS AND Justice Justice according to law and Justice of the law Most of the time people look to the law for Justice. Sometimes, though, people appeal to Justice against the law. The demand for Justice is made in the form of a legal or moral claim. In one sense every legal claim is a claim of Justice. A person accused of a crime claims the right to a fair trial or procedural Justice. People’s demand for punishment of a criminal act is a demand for Justice. The claim of a craftsman to be paid the agreed price for an artefact fashioned for a customer is a demand for Justice. A pedestrian’s claim for damages for personal injury caused by a road accident is a claim for Justice. A citizen’s claim to equality before the law (in a country that has a constitutional assurance of equality) is a claim of Justice. In fact, every claim of right based on existing law is a demand for Justice according to law, or simply legal Justice. Legal Justice requires that every person and every authority act according to established law. Legal Justice, in this sense, has little to do with the moral justness of the law. A court that enforces a morally unjust law upholds legal Justice, though not moral Justice. As presently explained, legal Justice has two dimensions – substantive and procedural. There is a core body of legal rules that most societies expect persons to observe as a matter of basic Justice. The rules in the criminal law against murder, assault and other wilful acts harming person and property belong to this class, and so do the fundamental rules of private law that impose obligations to perform contracts and make reparations for damage caused by wilful or negligent acts.
eBook - PDFLiberal Studies
An Outline Course
- N. C. Dexter, E. G. Rayner, C. V. James, D. Mattam, P. Sanderson(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Pergamon(Publisher)
So the question of whether a given individual finds a law just is essentially a question of how far that individual finds himself in agreement with the prin-ciples of the society in which he lives. And if he differs from it, by what standards other than the prevailing standards of society he measures the ultimate worth of that law. A law is condemned as unjust, basically, from the point of view of an ideal, impersonal Justice transcending human convenience or expediency. This has been variously described. The Greeks looked upon Justice as a balance; a reasonable all-round development of 120 Liberal Studies personal qualities, and a rational equilibrium of political forces, conducive to social harmony. The Romans regarded it as a spirit of mercy tempering the iron force of law; the humane interpretation that emphasized what is sometimes called the spirit rather than the letter of the law. The mediaeval church stressed the import-ance of God as the only true source of real Justice, and judged the efficacy of human laws by comparison with the divinely-inspired standard of which it was the sole guardian. The rationalists of the Enlightenment regarded Justice as an attribute of a rationally-inspired nature created by God, looking to the so-called natural law as its source. In the industrialized world of the nineteenth century, many, like Marx, thought of Justice as an attribute of economics, and looked for social Justice to an adequate and fair distribution of economic power. But not very far below the surface of all these interpretations lay the basic idea of fairness, giving us a clue to what, though their form of words may have been different, lay at the root of the idea of Justice.
eBook - PDFPolitical and Civic Leadership
A Reference Handbook
- Richard A. Couto(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
J ustice is a complex concept in both theory and practice whose precise meaning is subject to ongoing debate. Explicitly or implicitly, considerations of Justice under-lie most political discussions and debates. Equality, though a more straightforward concept, also has several meanings in current use. Considering these two concepts together opens many different lines of inquiry and discussion, more than can be included in a short reference piece. The discus-sion below will primarily emphasize distributive Justice and its relation to economic (in)equality. Procedural Justice concerns the process of determining and applying Justice. Two common forms of procedural jus-tice are Justice as equal opportunity and Justice as fair legal procedure. Justice as equal opportunity requires a fair race in which everyone starts in the same place, with the same set of advantages and disadvantages. Justice as fair legal procedure concerns the right to a fair trial, freedom from arbitrary arrest, adequate legal counsel, access to informa-tion about rights, and rules of discovery and evidence. Procedural Justice may be, and sometimes is, consistent with unjust outcomes. Even assuming equal opportunity, a fair race may result in radical inequality due to accident, talent, luck, and other factors. A procedurally just trial may convict the innocent or exonerate the guilty. Distributive Justice is concerned with outcomes, with the distribution of rewards and resources in a society. The ques-tion of desert is often viewed as the central element in dis-cussions of distributive Justice: People should get what they deserve. But how do we determine what a person deserves? Some of the most commonly applied criteria include effort, talent, skill, educational attainment, and our common humanity.
eBook - PDFJuridification of Social Spheres
A Comparative Analysis in the Areas ob Labor, Corporate, Antitrust and Social Welfare Law
- Gunther Teubner(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
The legal idea of equality, which allows law to be conceived of as some-thing distinct from mere respect for legality, thus does not exclude consideration of differences. Quite the contrary; Justice designates an always specific way of establishing a relationship of equivalence between necessarily unequal, distinct and different things; and therefore of combining equality and inequalities. The demand for social Justice enjoys no privilege here. Ancient law had its way of compromising between equality and inequalities; the law of 1789 proposed another; in the name of social Justice, yet another is being proposed. So much is this true that Aristotle's text constitutes, well ante litteram, a refutation of the critique, which some people have regarded as perti-nent, made by Marx of the law: that it is incapable of satisfying Justice because it is incapable of respecting the fact of inequalities. The second notion bound up with that of equality is that of common measure (Nicomáchean Ethics, Bk. V, 1133a). The idea of Justice (and of law) presup-poses the solution of the apparently insoluble problem of the comparison of Justice, Equality, Judgement: On Social Justice 95 the most dissimilar things. There can be no Justice without a measure, a rule that makes them comparable and allows equality between them to be conceived of. This is the problem of determining a general equivalent that allows one to conceive the respective value of things and people, at least in the context of the polity, or again the problem of defining a principle that would allow the value of all values to be assessed. This decisive and mysterious problem cannot find its solution in things, but only in the reason; it is always solved practically. The greatest minds have always struggled with it, and the more so the more reforming or revolutionary will they had.
eBook - PDF- Robert F. Drake(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Red Globe Press(Publisher)
Comparing theories of Justice I have introduced four conceptualisations of Justice: as utility, as enti-tlement, as contract, and as a specific artifact unique to each sphere or aspect of life in each distinctive culture which must respond dif-ferently to people as they are different from each other. Each account offered its own way of locating two balancing points. First, there is a balance to be struck between the extent of liberty that any individual (or group) may enjoy and the degree of constraint a state may impose to protect the freedoms of other individuals. Second, a point of balance is sought between the freedom of an individual Concepts of Justice and Equality of Opportunity 71 72 The Principles of Social Policy (or group) to acquire resources (property, wealth, influence and power) and the imposition of limits to the extent of such inequality in order to prevent the exploitation of human beings that monopoly (or tyranny) may bring. If Justice is only about ensuring fair processes then an indi-vidual’s freedom to acquire is absolute (or almost absolute), and exploitation becomes acceptable even to the point of infringing the lib-erties of others (as in Figure 4.2). If Justice is concerned with outcomes as well as processes (ensuring fair processes and limiting the extent of inequality) then the scope of the liberty available to an individual is bounded; in particular it falls short of the infringement of the liberty of others (as in Figure 4.1). But how are we to decide which of these (or any other) concepts of Justice to adopt? The many possible understand-ings of Justice are based on starkly differing rationales and they have led MacIntyre to ask: ‘Whose Justice? Which Rationality?’ As MacIntyre (1996: 1) asserts: some conceptions of Justice make the concept of desert central, while oth-ers deny it any relevance. Some conceptions appeal to inalienable human rights, others to some notion of social contract, and others again to a stan-dard of utility.
eBook - PDF- Suri Ratnapala(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Barry said: ‘When we ask about the Justice of an institution we are inquiring into the way in which it distributes benefits and burdens’ (1989b, 355). The means of determining what amounts to just distribution, and the means of achieving and maintaining such a distribu- tion, are the burden of theorists who define Justice in this way. Distributive Justice is also known as social Justice, because the duty of bringing about just distribution is thought to be an obligation of society as a whole. Many thinkers outside the law consider Justice purely in the distributive sense. As Campbell noted, ‘most modern theories of Justice have little to say about Justice in law despite the fact that Justice might appear to be the legal virtue’ (1988, 23). Distributive Justice and legal Justice Legal Justice and distributive Justice, as already noted, differ in a number of ways. The most important difference is that distributive Justice is concerned with outcomes or end states, whereas legal Justice is about the observance of rules of conduct. A person is legally just whose conduct is lawful and a person is legally unjust whose conduct is unlawful. Legal inJustice always arises from the conduct of a person. A person who suffers harm suffers no legal inJustice unless another person is responsible for the harm. Consider the case of a person who gambles at the casino and loses most of their savings. Their situation is unfortu- nate but not unjust. This is because their loss is not caused by the illegal act of a person but by a combination of factors for which no individual is responsible. If, however, they lose money because of fraud or theft, they are clearly the victim of legal inJustice. Distributive Justice is not a legal proposition but a moral, philosophical or political ideal. The word ‘Justice’ can be used in different senses. Whichever way the term is defined, it suggests the idea of a claim or right. A person seeks Justice not as charity but as entitlement.
eBook - PDFAI Fairness and Beyond
Law, Regulation, and Technology
- Chris Reed(Author)
- 2024(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
In the UK, the overriding principle is that decisions of those exercising public functions should be made in a fair way, as a matter of natural Justice – ‘Justice is intuitively understood to require a procedure which pays due respect to persons whose rights are significantly affected’. 216 This principle breaks down into a number of elements which are often described as the ‘rules’ of natural Justice in the literature, but it is clear from the cases that how far each rule needs to be followed by a particular decision-maker depends on the nature and context of the decision. 215 In the UK this extends to private bodies which the courts perceive as exercising public functions – see R v Panel on Takeovers and Mergers ex p Datafin plc [1987] QB 815. 216 Osborn v The Parole Board [2013] UKSC 61 [67]–[72] per Lord Reed. 62 Law’s Conception of Fairness The principles of natural Justice are often expressed as two Latin maxims: • Nemo judex in re sua, or ‘No man a judge in his own cause’. Initially this prohib- ited decisions from being made by a person who might benefit personally from a particular outcome, for the obvious reason that this might influence their decision. It has been extended to cover prejudgement or actual bias, whether or not this benefits the decision-maker, and also to decisions made in circumstances which might lead outsiders to suspect prejudgement or bias. • Audi alteram partem, or ‘Hear the other side’. Where there is a formal hearing, each of the parties affected must be allowed to state the case for a decision in their favour. This principle also extends to non-adversarial decision-making without a formal hearing, such as land use planning decisions where not only the applicant but also others who believe themselves to be affected are entitled to make representations about the proper outcome.
eBook - PDF- Sionaidh Douglas-Scott(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
In the absence of agreement or shared understanding as to the substance of Justice, there is a turn to procedure. It is thought that Justice may be assured by fair procedures, which in turn will ensure that outcomes are fair. Thus a limited, ‘neutral’ approach is counselled. In this way it is 4 See, eg, S Hampshire, Justice is Conflict (London, Duckworth, 1999). 218 Legal Justice I: ‘Maimed Justice’ and the Rule of Law thought that outcomes can appear ‘objective’ and thereby counter the claim that to ask for Justice is like ‘banging on the table’. 5 Perhaps the most famous twentieth-century account of Justice, that of John Rawls, attempts to evade the contestability of Justice by providing a theory of Justice as fairness. This attempts to liberate Justice from the biases of our personal circumstances, experiences and expectations. Rawls posited a ‘veil of ignorance’, a device employed in his ‘Original Position’, which is an attempt to put the ‘Right’ before any concept of the ‘Good’ so as to avoid any accusation of the partiality or bias derived from the subjective nature of values. 6 The veil of ignorance connotes a similar function as that of the blindfold of Justice—not as extreme as ‘maimed’ Justice but nonethe-less a recognition of the abuses of bias and power. If such an unbiased, objective account of Justice were possible, then Rawls claimed it would acknowledge two principles: namely, first, equal access to civil liberties for all and, second, what he termed the ‘difference principle’, which requires that any societal inequalities should necessar-ily be for the benefit of all in society and most particularly of the least well off.
eBook - PDFReinventing Justice
The American Drug Court Movement
- James L. Nolan Jr.(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
Philosophical discussions about criminal Justice, however, have been on the whole con- spicuously reluctant to drop this concept altogether. Indeed, an emphasis on its saliency has even been reasserted in recent years but in conjunction with rather than in opposition to other defining goals and aims of punish- ment. As in the above discussion, the ideals of proportionality, responsi- bility, and Justice require that elements of retribution theory remain an important part of the larger equation. As important thinkers on the sub- ject have maintained over the past two centuries, it is the one goal of criminal law that logically links punishment to Justice. In other words, until now, to talk about the meaning of Justice necessarily involves a dis- cussion of the place of just desert. Justice and Social Change Thus far, this chapter has focused on philosophical discussions about the meaning of Justice. From a sociological perspective we realize that these definitions may or may not be reflected in actual jurisprudential practices. The intersection between philosophical statements, cultural sensibilities, and actual judicial practices are complex and multifaceted. As I have dis- cussed more fully elsewhere, the political order generally, and the law in particular, is influenced by culture even as it influences culture. 44 Culture T H E M E A N I N G O F J U S T I C E 165 and law exist in a dialectical relationship. Adding to the complexity of this relationship is the availability (or unavailability) of certain philo- sophical meaning systems at any given historical moment. These meaning systems also influence the social environment even as they are influenced by the social environment. David Garland expresses well the complexity of the interaction between culture, philosophies of Justice, and concrete practices in criminal law.
eBook - PDF- C. Farrelly, L. Solum, C. Farrelly, L. Solum(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
12 Thus, Lawrence B. Solum 145 a sixth aspect of the rule of law might be added to Rawls’ formulation as follows: 6. The Requirement of Government under Law. Actions by government and government officials should be subject to general and public rules. a. Government officials should not be above the law. b. The legality of government action should be subject to test by independent courts of law. More can be said about the content of the ideal of the rule of law, but this brief exposition provides sufficient clarity for the moment, as we turn our attention to a second topic, the notion of equity. 2. Equity Equity has acquired a number of distinct meanings in contemporary legal discourse. When used by legal historians, equity may refer to a distinct body of legal rules that were once administered by the Court of Chancery in England and other common law countries. 13 When used by some legal economists, the same term refers to considerations of distributive Justice. 14 By using the term “equity,” I mean to refer to the practice of doing Justice in the particular case, when the just result is either (a) not required by the set of applicable legal rules or (b) contrary to the result required by the set of applicable legal rules. Some of what modern American lawyers call “equity” fits my defini- tion. For example, Justice Douglas’ opinion in the United States Supreme Court’s decision of Hecht v. Bowles stated, “The essence of equity jurisdic- tion has been the power of the Chancellor to do equity and to mold each decree to the necessities of the particular case.” 15 In the view of conser- vative critics, some federal judges have (mis)used their injunctive powers to depart from the rule of law and achieve particularized Justice. 16 But generally speaking, the modern legal understanding of equity is based solely on pedigree. “Equity” refers to powers and categories of disputes that were within the jurisdiction of the Chancellor.
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