To determine the significance of justice in any legal system it is necessary to identify the two central issues, which have to be taken into consideration when discussing law and justice. The first is the theoretical differences on the definition of justice and secondly; the law has been lined with many other objectives. Certainly there is a connection between the ideas of law and justice. For instance, we talk of courts, judges dispensing justice, civil and criminal justice, and the miscarriages of justice which have arisen. We expect the legal system to promote justice yet we do not have a clear understanding of what the term justice means. Like many concepts in legal and political philosophy, it is capable of being used in many different ways. It can refer to simple vengeance as for instance the Old Testament rule of an eye for an eye or it can be termed as being something more complex. This has been done by various theorists, one being Aristotle the philosopher. His view was that justice may be equated with fairness which takes on two forms, Distributive and Corrective justice. Distributive justice as the name suggests is concerned with th

This is where we have to consider substantial justice. For substantial justice to exist not only must the procedure by which the law is applied be seen to be fair but also the content of the rules? The content of a rule is measured against a higher set of principles such as fairness, justice or morality. The European Convention of human Rights has not been brought into domestic effect by legislation and so the courts are not able to carry out its provisions. Occasionally the courts are willing to decide a case where they comply with the provisions of the European Convention by developing the Common law. An example of this is Derbyshire County Council v Times Newspaper Ltd and Others where the House of Lords held that at common law a local authority had no right to sue for defamation since this would go against freedom of speech.

The concept of 'natural justice' is to bring about the general aim of justice, in the form of two main rules, the rule against bias and the right to a fair hearing. This concept of natural justice is shown in the case Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the civil service(1985). In this case there was a ban placed on the joining of unions but it was said that a requirement of natural justice was a 'duty to act fairly'.

It concerns opposing groups in society. He saw the law as a means of class domination by the rich who and oppressed. A just society in his view would be one in which wealth was distributed, socialist state. In terms of justice, he prefers a system where people are rewarded 'no matter what jobs they do to each according to his need'. You could argue this and say that it was unjust. In today's society, social classes are less marked. There is a meritocracy. It would be unjust not to award people on their achievements.

Staying on the subject of justice, what is it's significance in the legal sysyem?

Another theory is the utilitarian view put forward in the writings of Bentham. The principle of utilitarianism is that society should be organised in such a way that it will achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This can be done in two ways; either maximising the average of the utilities of everyone in the society, or by maximising the total utility of the society This means there would be nothing to say that a system of slavery was unjust if it could be shown the pleasure provided to the slave owners outweighed the pain borne by slaves. Most likely it is plausible that slavery would be kept. Thus, utility will except situations where the majority benefits from the poverty or oppression of a minority. Is this theory workable or acceptable? To take an example, would it be acceptable to allow a car manufacturer to produce a car with a defect, on the ground that it cost more to rectify the defect than care for the victims of a possible crash? This could be said to maximise the wealth of a society as a whole as it would allow people to buy cars at a lower price. But morally would it be acceptable to sacrifice the protection of the minority who may burn in a crash to the greatest good of the majority? Clearly, this may be criticised. The theory is concerned with what is good for the society, not what is right for the individual. Secondly how does one measure utility? Moreover, this theory is not attributed to everything. Some preferences or wants may be disregarded for reasons of consistency, for example a ban on alcohol for religious reasons. Utility would offend our institutions of justice because it would accept certain unacceptable inequalities, for example the slaves. The modern theories, in particular Rawls theory of justice can be seen as attacks on utilitarianism. He criticises the Utilitarianism for allowing the minority to be sacrificed to the greater good of the majority. Although we may agree with this, realistically our society does follow this pattern. It is not possible to keep every individual happy. However, Rawls derived his own th

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4351
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page double spaced)