tiassa said:
Fidelity to declared rule, combined with
Treating like cases alike. ”
As to the latter, what constitutes alike?
The existence of that question, and the difficulty it indicates, do not invalidate the approach.
Justice is not mechanically fixed, but guided, by rules: there are (in a good, useful system) for example, hierarchies of the "declared rules", and matters of uncertainty at one level are referred to the next "higher", or "more general", or "more vague", as often may be.
There is no replacement for human judgment and decision. As the phrase was: "twelve good men and true".
Now:
tiassa said:
Justice is blind, but what of fidelity? If the declared rule was that Americans commit treason by objecting to the Iraqi Bush War, should the courts abide?
At what level would that be the "declared rule" ? If there is conflict among the declared rules themselves, either there is no declared rule that can support fidelity (and thus no possiblity of legal justice) or there is a (next level) declared rule for choosing which. If every declared rule in the whole system firmly supported such a "treason" judgment, then that would in fact be legal justice. Then lawyers will not help - one needs Ghandis.
As you note, legal justice - however important - is a subsidiary of larger matters. But I was confining myself to "legal". IMHO that in itself is a great goal, imperfectly attained, for any human civilization.
