Law and Justice

Derrida argues that law and justice are not the same. Caputo describes justice as being fairness, and the fact that this fairness isn't present in law demonstrates the difference between the two. The law tries to be just, he says, but it falls short of justice, unable to account for each individual situation. This difference between law and justice can be seen in the way the law is often biased against certain groups of people or individuals.
 

From 2010 to 2014, Norrie May-Welby fought for the legal status of being neither man nor woman. In April 2014, the high court ruled that a third gender must be recognised in NSW. The language that was used in court was scattered with assumptions of a sex binary. These assumptions are not fair on those who are outside this sex binary. When the foundations that a law is made on are unjust, then justice and law cannot be the same. However, in the case of Norrie May-Welby we can also see the way justice works to improve the law. Instead of seeing law as justice, we can see justice as being an influence on law.

Yet if it is impossible for the law to account for the individual, then can the law ever be just? And even when the law changes to become more just, is it really any more just than before when the language used is itself unjust?


J. Caputo, “In the names of Justice” in Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with constant Reference to Deconstruction, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 69-92.

J. Derrida, “Froce of Law: ‘The Mystical foundation of authority”, trans. P.M. Quaintance, In D. Cornell, M. Rosenfeld and D. G. Carlson (eds), Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, New York and London, Routledge, 1992, pp. 3-67

http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/cases/s273-2013/Norrie_App.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/02/third-gender-must-be-recognised-by-nsw-after-norrie-wins-legal-battle