Whether its social justice, legal justice, criminal justice, political justice or corporate justice, justice according to Cornell Law School is a philosophical and ethical process. It is the idea that people are treated with impartiality, fairness, properly and with reason by the Law. Justice means that no harm “befalls another, and that, where harm is alleged, a remigial action is taken” (2020) in due process. Essentially, justice means that the legal structure serves to judge people’s actions and who should be awarded burden or benefit. With that said, within the process of Law, there are the following steps: legal analysis, legal research, legal planning and legal communications (Zariski 2014). With the different types of justice noted within this article, it means that these “justices,” must follow an organized process similar to its main branch, Law if it is to make effective change within the society. Law is about giving individuals justice. It is about serving and protecting people. With that said, as it pertains to Law, there are policy objectives by which the entire legal structure is based. Policy objectives include equity & equality, safety & security, efficiency, feasibility, public acceptability, sustainability, accessibility and inclusiveness (Cleland 2019). It is this way because maxims to law exist. A maxim is an established legal principle. A specific maxim of law by which is necessary to understand as it pertains to the subject matter is, salus populi est suprema lex or suprema lex salus populi. This means that the “welfare,” of the people is the supreme law or that public welfare is the highest law. This is in backed by constitutional supremacy which essentially enforces the Constitution of the land (Yates 2017). Constitutions came from the French revolt as peasants within medieval France revolted against King Louis XVI. The French revolt was caused as a result of injustice to the middle and lower classes. This caused a push back against the nobility headed by the aforesaid King. With that said, a Constitutional Monarchy emerged as a solution. Since then, countries have adopted the Constitution in a bid to promote cohesion and peace within their nations and justice has been there ever since.
As it pertains to society, there are various demographics that exists and coexist. These communities within the society have individual and shared believes, values and norms. This allows the society to have a wide variety of people however, it is the institutions of the government that serve to affect social norms and trends as they attempt to assimilate people into the way of life within that society. As a matter of fact, the very identity of the country is a means by which to ensure that citizens adjust their way of life to the domestic way of life. For example, In America, they have the melting pot belief by which American immigrants are assimilated to the community via the states identity. In Canada however, it uses Law to entrench multiculturalism within its society. Canada has the Multiculturalism Act of the 1980’s to promote the policy objective above of accessibility and inclusiveness. Even before the Multiculturalism Act, Canada has entrenched the French language within its Constitution. With all of this in mind, it becomes increasingly clear that to achieve “justice,” means that a certain degree of public acceptability is necessary wherein public acceptability in itself is a policy objective.
The contemplation of justice occurs when the status quo has been scrutinized or questioned. This causes self determination and many groups or individuals can do this all at the same time causing cohesion (approval of deviance of the norm) and solidarity although not always and at other times, in the case of state deflectors, they have only themselves at which point they need to go to another state. This means that individuals or groups notwithstanding governments, businesses, corporations and even nonprofit organizations have a lot to gain or loose with concern of the existing society as it pertains to justice. If the status quo is questioned, disarray can occur and this disarray causes individuals to analyze the phenomenon. Legal analysis means that the individual looks at the problem to determine facts, evidence, supporting evidence and proofs. With these informations laid out, it means that justice can perform better legal research. With in the process of legal research, the individual must interpret Law as it pertains to the phenomenon in question. Within legal research, the formal process of the Scientific Method is utilized to gain footing on the phenomena. This means that facts, evidence, supporting evidence and proofs are put under the lens of scientific inquiry. The interpretation of Law, is well described within the writings of Boyd who states that interpretations consists of three rules which are the following, read the statute literally (expression unis est exclusion alterius), read it in its context (ejusdem generis) and read in accordance with its intentions (noscitur a sociis) (2015). Legal planning is the careful process of determining what action is going to be taken at a given moment as it pertains to a possible legal matter. Legal planning as it pertains to the justices mentioned involves the use of articulating and aggregating interest, for the policy objective of public acceptability. It also involves policy creation under the guise of the mentioned maxim. A legal matter is a description of things that relate to law. Legal matters are crafted during the process of legal planning. It takes information gathered during the process of legal analysis and legal research and composites it to something that can be used in law, the legal matter. From whence the legal matter has been written up, the process of legal communication then takes place. This means that debates and discourse occur whether it be in the court room or a public forum as individuals or groups perform self- determination. Allen Sens says that determination is “the claim that individuals have the right to self rule” (2005). Mind, you, the four steps of the processes that are explained above all can be interchanged and can occur during the occurrence of another step. For example, in the Court of Law, there is a defendant and a plaintiff. If the defendant has new informations shared during trial, the plaintiff needs to gather that information and conduct legal analysis, and legal research to adjust the legal plan. When this process is completed, the legal representative of that individual uses legal communication to depict the information found from the previous steps so that a deliberation can occur. Essentially the above process is a tried and tested process of Law and it is no surprise that it can be used for its branches of justice, the following: social justice, legal justice, criminal justice, political justice or corporate justice. When legal communications are complete and the legal matter is tried and concluded, an arbitrator or decision maker then enforces policy at which point the status quo has been affected or changed. With all this mentioned, it is important to recap what was said. A process occurs when justice is contemplated and its based of of existing legal processes and standards. Legal analysis, legal research, legal planning and legal communication are the baseline process by which to make an inquiry on “justice.” Further, the Scientific Method is used to determine the truths of facts, evidence, supporting evidence and proofs, in other words empiracisim. Lastly, the political process described within the Structural Functional Theory (2012) per Bingham et al, is also used because the mentioned justices are bound to a specific maxim. Hence, legal advocates engaging in this justice process articulate and aggregate interest while policy is created and implemented so that these affect the basis of that whomsoever is the target of the justice in question. The below are explanations of the different types of “justice” with some examples of how it occurs within the domestic environment.
THEORY OF CORPORATE JUSTICE: The injustices of corporations are actions against the civilian consumer. Corporate justice focuses on civilian action designed to institute an enterprise for that individual and those whomsoever he/ she chooses as a partner or affiliate. Corporations with a larger size attempt to meddle and hamper that individual in a bid of turf protection. Usually, the person starts off as a single unit and they organize to develop a foundation whereby a basis exists. This further develops to a syndicate as the person uses self-determination. Sometime in the future Articles of Incorporation occurs which then that entity bonafide becomes a corporation. Every entrepreneur is an example of corporate justice however a clear example of corporate justice is when Walmart’s are created, the smaller shops get shafted. Some shops have changed locations and have grown to be really bountiful. Another example of corporate justice is when companies compete. Under Miles and Snow typology, companies have several mechanisms by which to base their actions. There have been companies that have used this. A competing company releases a product that is similar to a product that has already been released, this company serves as a reactor. This is borderline passing off however, there are times where the similar product meets its demise because of a lack of innovation ex Play Station Portable. The Play Station Portable was a self determination effort of Sony to penetrate the mobile videogames market. It found success however, as products have life spans, it released its successor, the PSP Vita. This console was met with lackluster demand because of a lack of innovation. With all this mentioned, self determination always plays a role in disrupting the status quo and it is justice that is there to hand equity to the winning contender. Another example is when Canada Bread used price fixing to gouge its customers. You may recall Canada Bread and their products, they produce Dempsters Bread, Complements Bread and Villagio Artisan Breads. These products were sold at higher prices than market value, customers felt cheated and the company was burdened with a 50 million dollar fine by the government resulting in corporate justice.
THEORY OF POLITICAL JUSTICE: In politics political actors often use contingency planning to outweigh their opponent. The tactic here is to give the opponent an identity by which he or she can be "managed." To give a person an identity before they can make it means that the opponent is under a lens of a label which then goes back to criminological theory labelling theory. Akers says that the theory of labelling is the informal and formal process of stigmatizing a person. Labels become the dependent variable when socially unacceptable behavior is defined as wrong. And further labels become the independent variable when labeling theory hypothesizes that such labels escalate delinquent behaviors. This means that political opponents can be disadvantaged through the criminological process of labelling. The above often happens to individuals that have or are planning to deflect to another nation. Jihyun Park is a North Korea deflector that has suffered starvation, torture and prosecution in North Korea. She deflected and went to the UK. In her case, she experienced political justice by being accepted as a candidate for election in Bury UK as a Conservative. Previously in history, there have been defectors that have come from Russia, German, USA. Amongst others. As it pertains to the German deflectors, this occurred in WWII. These individuals deflected to contribute to the intel of the Americans at which point they created military weapons essentially giving them hegemony and the spoils of the war as a means of political justice. A USA deflector, the murderer of JFK, this individual deflected to Russia however he was not met with the same gratitude that German deflectors were given. For example, USA deflectors as Lee Harvey Oswald were sent to Josef Stalin’s gulags where they were handed long sentences or executed.
THEORY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE: Social justice is the open and free debate and discourse of social issues that are prominent in society. In the USA it is very supported by the first amendment of their constitution. This leads to intrigue which allows for people to create social movements and social mobilization for legal planning and communication related to the cause for effective change in society. Social justice is a main tenant of democracy. Its objective is to spread awareness and promote a culture of being “woke.” This means that individuals have high acuity towards social issues. Some issues include police brutality, feminism, gender amongst others. People in social justice debate and deliberate in groups so as to affect the ecosphere by which it can affect democracy so that social movements can occur. Social movements that recently occurred in the most recent few years are the #metoo movement, the #freebritney movement and the #blacklivesmatter movement. These social movements have caused many changes in society so as to affect the convention and customs of the domestic environments that they were initiated. An example of the effects of social justice occurred when significant backlash happened with the incident involving an African American man and a police officer. George Floyd was being strangled with the police officers leg. George was see on video stating that he “couldn’t breath.” Moments after, George was deceased. The public backlash involved accusations of murder and police brutality. Essentially just deserts was granted by the state to prosecute the officer. The officer was sentenced to 22 years of incarceration.
THEORY OF LEGAL JUSTICE: Legal justice is excellence within the field of Law. It means that the individual has conducted a thorough legal analysis, legal research, legal planning and legal communication which resulted in an unprecedented decision being rendered by an honorable Judge resulting in positive law essentially establishing rights. Legal justice is supremacy in parliament in the Westminister System and it is based on a maxim that the ultimate law is the law for the people. Legal justice is about “groundbreaking court cases.” This means that the laws are "practiced throughout the nation or individual states for decades or even centuries [are tried]. [And] these cases tend to overturn legal decisions made with the creation of the Constitution and often lead to the creation of new laws or amendments” (Online Paralegal Programs 2023). An example of Legal justice is the Miranda v Arizona case of 1966. This resulted in what are known as the “Miranda Rights.” Ernesto Miranda was arrested and charged with kidnap and rape. It was found that Police did not offer him legal counsel during the two hour interrogation. The accused's Lawyer in Supreme Court won the case because the court ruled that “all citizens placed under arrest must be informed of their rights before being questioned. Any evidence or defendant statements acquired before the citizen learns of these rights cannot be admitted in court” (Online Paralegal Programs 2023). With this establishment of legal justice, a new law was created and this law continues to be used in every accusation.
THEORY OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: The individual has committed a crime that they have been punished for. The
act of punishing is based on shaming theory (Akers 2013). There are two types of
shamming. More often than not criminals are disintegratively shamed so as
to reduce crime rates. When this process does not work or it falters, it
results in psychological truths to human nature, natural law. For example, there is a
bias to deviance. This occurs because humans have instinctively been
protecting themselves against its predators since the hunter gatherer days.
Regardless, criminal justice occurs in many ways which often results in
sentences being reduced. An example is when Enron executives committed
fraud. Jeff Skilling the COO and CEO of
Enron, was sentenced 24 years in prison however after an appeal it was reduced
to 14 years. Another example is Cameron
Herrin. Cameron Herrin was a young
individual with moderately fair looks.
He was partaking in street racing one night and he ended up crashing and
killing an innocent mother and a daughter. He was
charged 24 years in prison. What is
interesting to note however, was that as soon as the story went to print. Followers started to claim that they were,
“in love with a murderer.” Criminal
justice is a complicated psychological process involving many causes and effects. To be liked in the way that Cameron has been
liked is very challenging. Regardless
what he experienced is a form of criminal justice.
WORK CITED
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Criminological Theories. New
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