law and justice

• Can you create justice for all? No justice is subjective, justice for someone is revenge, another is them in prison.

  Always a winner and loser in court the loser wont think its justice.
• Essay plan

  • Introduction
  • Meaning of justice
  • Extent to which the law achieves it 
  • Conclusion 
• Don't turn it into a philosophy essay needs to be about the law*
• Plato (justice is a universal moral value)
• Aristotle (justice is relative emphasises proportionality)
• Aquinas (NML)
•  Positivism (law morality and justice entirely different concepts)
• utility (Mill and Bentham)
• Marxism (redistribution of wealth, but wealthy wont share only way force)
• Rawls (everyone should be entitled to the same basic rights and freedoms, justice is about fairness and equality)
• Nozick (keep state interference to a minimum, shouldn’t interfere with someone else's rights, supports a welfare state (a system whereby the state undertakes to protect the health and well-being of its citizens, especially those in financial or social need, by means of grants, pensions, and other benefits. )) - anti-marxist individual rights don't take individuals' land away to help others sees it as unjust.
• Theories about morality merely background for your essay.
• No single definition of justice*

  Extent to which the law achieves justice?
• Procedural justice- concerns the fairness of the process by which legal decisions are made. 
• Corrective justice- e.g. purpose of the appeal system, concerns how the law reverses wrongdoing and restores fair balance between individuals. 
• Substantive justice- concerns the extent to which substantive laws from crime, tort and contract produce a just end result. 
• Lord Denning believes that judges should do anything they can, including changing laws to ensure a just end result. 

  This would be an effective method when applied, however, some judges will do everything in their power and others will not so there cannot always be justice for all. 
• Robert Hegarty believes that justice should be achieved through use of law and equity. 

  This naively assumes parliamentary law is perfect^
• Four types of justice: procedural (attempts to ensure justice through systems it puts in place e.g. juries, appeals and judges) - does not achieve justice for all 

  substantive, distributive and corrective.
• Miller- intimidation used to gain a confession 
• Ponting’s case- In 1985, Clive Ponting, a civil servant working for the British government, leaked documents about the Falklands war; he was acquitted in a jury trial despite the fact that he had breached the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the judge had directed the jury to convict him (R v Ponting [1985]

  Can argue this did not achieve justice^
• When answering an essay answer the question all the way through 
• Different acts too, not just criminal law ones e.g. Official secrets act 1911, Minimum wage act 1998
• Try to bring in some tort and contract as well as it makes you look good