Judicial Justice: From Procedural Justice to Communicative Justice

Abstract

Approaching the matter from the position of trying to bridge the gap between the theory of justice and the judicial institution, I explain in this paper the dilemma inherent in the idea of justice and point out that this dilemma is inevitable because we cannot completely rule out the question of “the good” in the question of justice. Based on this, I explain the problem of judicial justice from three points of view: the institutional, the discursive, and the subjective point of view of judges. From the institutional perspective, while looking at the relationship between the legislature, judiciary, and civil society, I propose the principle of the division of justice, touching briefly upon the problem of constitutional challenges and judge-made law. From the discursive perspective, after reflecting that the judicial process is necessarily a part of the social communicative process, I examine judicial justice as part of the problem of communication. Finally and from the subjective perspective, I comment on what justice could mean for an individual judge who has to find the right answers in hard cases and conclude by likening justice to the “vanishing point” of a painting.