H.

P NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY,

SHIMLA

Assignment of

“LEGAL METHODOLOGY”

Topic: Dimension of Justice: An Overview

Submitted To:

Dr. Chandreshwari Minhas

Ms. Sarita

Submitted By:

Shashwat Srivastava

BA.LL.B(HONS.)-I SEMESTER
Roll No.-32

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my thanks to the people who have helped me throughout my project. I
am grateful to our Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. S.C.Raina , Registrar Prof. Dr. S.S Jaswal
and Dr. Chandreshwari Minhas and Ms. Sarita for their support to the project.

Some special thanks of mine goes to my classmates who helped me out in completing the
project, where they all exchanged their own interesting ideas, thoughts and made this possible
to complete my project with all accurate information, I wish to thank my parents, brother for
their personal support and attention who inspired me to go my own way.

Last but not least I want to thank my friends who treasured me for my hard work and
encouraged me and finally to GOD who made all the things possible for me till the end

Shashwat Srivastava
 Contents

 Introduction
 Objectives
 Research methodology
 Subject Matter
 Philosopher’s Anthropology
 Conclusion
 Introduction
Justice is the most significant and most discussed objective of the State, and Society. It is the
foundation of arranged human living. Justice demands the regulation of selfish actions of
people for stimulating a fair distribution, equal treatment of equals, and proportionate and just
rewards for all. It stands for accord between individual interests and the interests of society.

Justice is in the central position to political theory. In protecting or opposing laws, policies,
decisions and actions of government, appeals are made in the name of justice. Persons
tangled in every tension for securing their interests always raise the slogan: “We want
Justice”. All civil rights movements are basically movements for justice.

Justice stands for rule of law, absence of arbitrariness and a system of equal rights, freedoms
and opportunities for all in society. In fact, Justice stands recognized as the first virtue or
ideal or objective to be secured. In its Preamble, the Constitution of India gives first priority
to the securing of social, economic and political justice for all its people. In contemporary
times Justice stands conceptualized basically as Social Justice.1

Objective
The objective of this research work is to:

 explore the concept of Justice,

 what are the types of justice,
 history of justice,
 how it affects the society.

Research Methodology

For the purpose of this research the researcher has followed a uniform doctrinal
approach. He has referred to various, online sources research articles and other
library resources
1
K. k. Ghai, Speech on Justice:Meaning and Types of Juistice(13november,2017;03:31A.M.)
http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/speech/speech-on-justice-meaning-and-types-of-justice/40361
A uniform Bluebook citation method has been used by the researcher.

Subject Matter

What is Justice?

Justice is the legal or philosophical theory by which fairness is administered. The concept of

justice differs in every culture. An early theory of justice was set out by the Ancient Greek
philosopher Plato in his work The Republic. Advocates of divine command theory argue that
justice issues from God.2

Protection of rights and punishing the wrong in fair manner. All legal system aims to uphold
this model through fair and proper administration of the municipal law, it is possible to have
unjust laws.

Justice is one of the most significant moral and political concepts.  The word comes from the
Latin jus, meaning right or law.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines the “just” person as
one who typically “does what is morally right” and is disposed to “giving everyone his or her
due,” offering the word “fair” as a synonym.  But thinkers want to get beyond etymology and
dictionary definitions to consider, for example, the nature of justice as both a moral virtue of
character and a desirable quality of political society, as well as how it applies to ethical and
social decision-making.3

John Rawls said that, “Justice is the first virtue of the social institution, as truth is of system
of thought.”

It is owing to this affirmation that the fundamental purpose of law is said to be the quest for
justice which is to be administered without passion as when it comes at the door, justice flies
out of the window.4

History of Justice

Plato wrote in The Republic that it would be an ideal state that “every member of the
community must be assigned to the class for which he finds himself best fitted”

In his dialogue Republic, Plato uses Socrates to argue for justice that covers both the just
person and the just City State. Justice is a proper, harmonious relationship between the
2
Justice(12november,2017;02:12P.M.)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice
3
Western theories of justice(13november,2017;01:20P.M.) http://www.iep.utm.edu/justwest/
4
C.K. Allen. Aspects of Justice,34, London,( Stevens & Sons), 1955.
warring parts of the person or city. Hence, Plato's definition of justice is that justice is the
having and doing of what is one's own. A just man is a man in just the right place, doing his
best and giving the precise equivalent of what he has received. This applies both at the
individual level and at the universal level. A person's soul has three parts – reason, spirit and
desire. Similarly, a city has three parts – Socrates uses the parable of the chariot to illustrate
his point: a chariot works as a whole because the two horses' power is directed by the
charioteer.5

Types of Justice

 Commutative justice: commutative justice is precise and accurate. They

concern the situations where one individual acts against another. The crime, the
perpetrator and the victim are all identifiable to everyone. For example, if someone
assaults you or steals from you, their action is a violation of commutative justice.
You are the victim, they are the violator and the crime is the assault or theft.6 

 Distributive justice:  Distributive justice is “loose, vague and indeterminate.”

It cannot be reduced to rules and there is neither criminal nor crime when it is
violated. Distributive justice involves the fulfilment of positive liberties, which are
often costly. For example, health care is a positive liberty. If someone dies of a
treatable disease, that is a violation of distributive justice.7

 Divine justice: The justice which is ensured by God is called divine justice. In
the ordinary human life, justice says, “As you sow, so you reap.” This is justice: tit
for tat. If somebody has done something wrong, we feel we have every right to
threaten him, frighten him and punish him. But this kind of justice is on the lowest
rung of the human ladder. When we step up to a higher rung, justice becomes
forgiveness. If we can forgive someone who has done something wrong, that
forgiveness itself is justice.8

5
Justice(12november,2017;02:12P.M.)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice
6
James Oswald, commulative and distributive Justice(13november,2017;02:30 P.M.)
https://azmytheconomics.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/commutative-and-distributive-justice/
7
i.bid
8
Divine
justice(13november,2017;0232P.M.)https://www.srichinmoy.org/spirituality/god_the.../divine_justice/di
vine_justice1
 Divine Justice is equipped at every moment to be of help to us, to motivate us,
guide us, mould us and shape us
 Interactional justice: The justice which arises from the communication between
two people of seemingly unequal status. This type of justice is particularly seen in
office atmosphere between administrator/subordinate where the supervisor treats
his or her subordinate with gentleness.
 Natural justice: Natural justice is a mechanical terminology which means rule
against bias and the right to fair hearing. The philosophies of natural justice
concern technical fairness and ensure a fair decision is grasped by an objective
decision maker. 

Upholding procedural fairness protects the rights of individuals and enhances

public sureness in the process. 

A word used to refer to circumstances where audi alteram partem (the right to be

heard) and nemo judex in parte sua (no person may judge their own case) apply. 

The ideologies of natural justice were resulting from the Romans who believed that
some legal principles were "natural" or self-evident and did not need a statutory
basis. 9
 Organizational justice: Organizational justice remarks to the justice within a
business organization. Corporate Social Responsibility is a sort of organizational
justice. Organizational justice mentions to employee observations of fairness in the
workplace.
 Restorative justice: Justice that is concerned about the victims and the offenders is
called restorative justice. It focuses on what is the best way to address crime and
criminality in society. Restorative justice repairs the harm caused by crime. When
victims, affered and community members meed to decide how to do that, the result
can be transformational.10

9
Natural justice(13november,2017;02:37P.M.) http://www.justice4you.org/natural%20_justice.php
10
What is restorative justice(13november,2017;02:44P.M.)
http://restorativejustice.org/#sthash.s9krn6ZU.dpbs
  Retributive justice: The notion of retributive justice has been used in a variety of
ways, but it is best understood as that method of justice committed to the following
three principles:
(1) that those who commit certain kinds of wrongful acts, paradigmatically
grave crimes, morally deserve to suffer a proportionate punishment;
(2) that it is essentially morally good—good without location to any other
goods that might arise—if some genuine punisher gives them the
punishment they deserve; and
(3) that it is morally impermissible intentionally to punish the innocent or to
inflict disproportionately large punishments on wrongdoers.11
 Social justice: It refers to the distribution of wealth, opportunities and privileges in
societies. Social justice is the equal distribution of resources and opportunities, in
which outside factors that categorize people are irrelevant.12
 Transformative justice: Transformative justice is not a principle per say but it is a
metaphysical strategy that talks about struggles and focuses on resolutions.
Effect of Justice on Society
As the world works out how to combat poverty in the next generation of development
goals, new strategies are needed. Justice is highly recognized by scholars, practitioners,
and governments alike as having a broader positive effect on development. In fact, it has
already been helping to achieve the current Millennium Development Goals reach their
targets. Here are a few examples:13
To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger: Justice strengthens efforts to eliminate
extreme poverty and hunger. Access to justice programs give farmers and marginalized
communities the gears they need to advance their tenancy security, which has been
shown to lead to more fruitful investment. Similarly, the capacity to access and impose
regulatory frameworks helps to regulate whether contracts and labour and environmental
morals are respected in practice: all of which are serious for fair development outcomes.
To promote gender equality: Access to justice helps understand legal assurances of
gender equality into real developments in the daily lives of women. Access to justice

11
Alec wallen, retributive justice(13november,2017;02:47P.M.) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-
retributive/
12
What is Social Justice(12november,2017;02:50P.M.) https://www.pachamama.org/social-justice/what-is-
social-justice
13
Namati, justice2015: How Justice Impacts Development(13november,2017;05:20P.M.)
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/fact-sheets/justice-2015-how-justice-impacts-development
schemes have included support to women in management of domestic violence, sharing
in benefits from natural resources, retaining control over loans taken out in their name,
and retrieving inheritance to which they are permitted or property upon divorce.
To ensure environmental sustainability: Justice and governance can help preserve the
environment. Globally, a study of 80 forest areas across Asia, Africa, and Latin
America found that greater local autonomy in making rules about forest management
was associated with high carbon storage and many livelihood benefits, measured in the
contributions of firewood, fodder, fertilizer, and timber to the basic subsistence needs of
local users. 14
Philosopher's Anthropology.
Many philosophers try to explain the theory of justice, and some of the theories are:
Rawls theory of Justice15:  Rawls theory of justice revolves around the adaptation of two
fundamental principles of justice which would, in turn, guarantee a just and morally
acceptable society. The first principle guarantees the right of each person to have the most
extensive basic liberty compatible with the liberty of others. The second principle states that
social and economic positions are to be a) to everyone’s advantage and b) open to all.

A key problem to Rawls is to show how such principles would be universally adopted and
here the work borders on general ethical issues.  He introduces a theoretical “veil of
ignorance” in which all the “players” in the social game would be placed in a situation which
is called the “original position”. Having only a general knowledge of the facts of “life and
society”, each player is to abide based on their moral obligation. By denying the players any
specific information about themselves it forces them to adopt a generalized point of view that
bears a strong resemblance to the moral point of view.

“Moral conclusions can be reached without abandoning the prudential standpoint of positing,
a moral outlook merely by pursuing one’s own prudential reasoning under certain procedural
bargaining and knowledge constraints.”
Rawls proposes that the most reasonable principles of justice for a society are those that
individuals would themselves agree to behind the “veil of ignorance”, in circumstances in

14
I.bid
15
John Rawls theory of justice: analysis and summary(13november,2017;05:40P.M.)
https://schoolworkhelper.net › Law
which each is represented as a moral person, endowed with the basic moral powers. What this
position supports is that while each person has different ends and goals, different
backgrounds and talents, each ought to have a fair chance to develop his or her talents and to
pursue those goals – fair equality for opportunity. It is not a race or contest where the talented
or gifted prevail, it should be complete cooperation among all so that there may be reasonable
life for all.

What the “veil of ignorance” brings out is that we can accept utilitarianism as a public
conception of justice only if we are prepared to let someone be subject to conditions we
would not be prepared to subject ourselves. However, it is not the responsibility of my
actions to ensure the fulfilment of another person’s goals. These principles create an equal
distribution of the “pie”, if you will, yet it is not attainable unless pursued or strived for.
There is no room for idle observation, meaning, that while we all possess equal opportunity
as we all are equally moral persons, the choice of what you wish to possess materially as well
as intellectually is the discretion and capability of the individual.

Why should we accept these principles as principles of justice? Primarily, these principles
promote equality among all. Each individual has the same basic liberties and opportunities.
Each individual has a moral obligation to accept the existence of every other human being. In
doing so, all people become equal in their position and desires. We are equal in that each has
the basic powers of choice and on acting on a sense of justice. The responsibility of
procedure and growth relies on each and every individual his/her self. By doing so we may
create a level playing field. Is this a form of pure competition? It would seem so. Competition
in that what is desired must be achieved by one and desired by many perhaps. A benefit of
competitive circumstance is the betterment of all parties involved as they must evolve in
order to surpass one another.

Also, in fair equality for opportunity we may eliminate all forms of discrimination and
discretion of races, ethnic origin, social standards and religious intolerance and beliefs. All of
these characteristics are a component of the individual person thus making him/her
“individual”. Justice is only succumbed when the liberties of an individual are affected
because of an external opinion of these characteristics, and, in the oppression of these
characteristics upon another. They are nothing more than components of a people.
Amartya Sen’s Idea of Justice16: In book Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen argues that this
traditional strain of political philosophy, which seeks to identify ‘the just’, or a single set of
just principles that can then be used to design perfectly just institutions for governing society,
reveals little about how we can identify and reduce injustices in the here and now. 

According to Sen, the dominant approach, which he refers to as ‘transcendental

institutionalism’, is beleaguered by two central problems: the problem of feasibility and the

problem of redundancy.  The first is a result of the practical difficulty, even impossibility, of
arriving at a single set of principles that can help us to select just institutions through a
process of impartial reasoning. In Rawls’ theory of justice, for instance, his two lexically
ordered principles of justice are, it is argued, those that would be unanimously selected
through an impartial decision procedure - through the hypothetical original position using the
‘veil of ignorance’ device. These principles then provide the basis for choosing actual
institutions in the ‘legislative stage’. Clearly, however, much depends on the assumption that
Rawls’ two principles of justice are those that would indeed emerge from the original
position. And Sen is skeptical that this is so. 

In fact, Sen maintains that there are many principles that can pass the test of impartiality. He
illustrates this point, first, using an anecdote about the competing claims of three children
over the distribution of a single flute. One child argues that they should receive the flute
because they are the best flautist; the second, because they are the poorest of the lot; and the
third, because they crafted the flute without help from the others. The three arguments are
based, in turn, on principles of utility, economic equity, and the entitlement to the fruits of
one’s unaided efforts. Each can be defended with strong, impartial arguments. And, returning
to Rawls, it is similarly possible, for example, to provide substantial reasons for selecting
Harsanyi’s utilitarian principle in the place of Rawls’ maximin principle as the basis for
resolving distributional questions within a situation similar to the original position.

But this indeterminacy has profound implications for Rawls’ theory of justice, for ‘if there is
no unique emergence of a given set of principles of justice that together identify the
institutions needed for the basic structure of society, then the entire procedure of justice as

fairness, as developed in Rawls’ classic theory, would be hard to use’. 

16
Charles Barclay Roger, Amartya Sen and the idea of justice(13november,2017;06:00)
https://www.opendemocracy.net/charles-barclay-roger/amartya-sen-and-idea-of-justice
The second problem - the redundancy problem - is that the identification of fully just social
arrangements is neither a necessary nor sufficient guide to reasoned choice of just policies,
strategies or institutions. It is insufficient because, as Sen explains, ‘the characterization of
spotless justice, even if such a characterization were to emerge clearly, would not entail any
delineation whatsoever of how diverse departures from spotlessness would be compared and
ranked’. In other words, using an analogy with paintings, the fact that a person regards Da
Vinci’s Mona Lisa as the most perfect picture in the world does not reveal anything about
how they would rank a Picasso against a Van Gogh. But it is also unnecessary because in
adjudicating between the various merits of a Picasso and a Van Gogh there is no reason to
identify the most perfect picture in the world, just as when determining the relative heights of
Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount McKinley knowing that Mount Everest is taller than both is
an entirely redundant fact.

Conclusion
Provision of justice in society happens through the formation of situation where people have
no fear, they have requirements, and they get to appreciate various constitutional rights while
the law through the justice system armors them from different threats.

The term 'justice' means dissimilar things to diverse people. For some, the subject centralises
the issue of overwhelming the procedural barricades within the court system itself. Such an
method tends to focus on issues of overwhelming delays within the court process, efficiency,
formality and cost of records, and the organisation, structure and administration of courts and
tribunals.