Quotes About Justice

The court is the bureaucracy of the law. If you bureaucratise popular justice then you give it the form of a court.

In the darkest region of the political field the condemned man represents the symmetrical, inverted figure of the king.

Le supplice ne rétablissait pas la justice, il réactivait le pouvoir.

Today, criminal justice functions and justifies itself only by this perpetual reference to something other than itself, by this unceasing reinscription in non-juridical systems.

A utopia of judicial reticence: take away life, but prevent the patient from feeling it; deprive the prisoner of all rights, but do not inflict pain; impose penalties free of all pain. Recourse to psycho-pharmacology and to various physiological 'disconnectors', even if it is temporary, is a logical consequence of this 'non-corporal' penality. The

The punishment must proceed from the crime; the law must appear to be a necessity of things, and power must act while concealing itself beneath the gentle force of nature.

The public execution did not re-establish justice; it reactivated power. In the seventeenth century, and even in the early eighteenth century, it was not, therefore, with all its theatre of terror, a lingering hang-over from an earlier age. Its ruthlessness, its spectacle, its physical violence, its unbalanced play of forces, its meticulous ceremonial, its entire apparatus were inscribed in the political functioning of the penal system.

How could the disciplines and the power that functions in them appear arbitrary, when they merely operate the mechanisms of justice itself, even with a view to mitigating their intensity?

Utopía del pudor judicial: quitar la existencia evitando sentir el daño, privar de todos los derechos sin hacer sufrir, imponer penas liberadas de dolor.

Le droit de punir a été déplacé de la vengeance du souverain à la défense de la société.

Es preciso que la justicia criminal, en lugar de vengarse, castigue al fin. Esta necesidad de un castigo sin suplicio se formula en primer lugar como un grito del corazón o de la naturaleza indignada: en el peor de los asesinos, hay una cosa al menos que debe respetarse cuando se castiga: su "humanidad".

Devant la justice du souverain toutes les voix doivent se taire.

It would be hypocritical or naïve to believe that the law was made for all in the name of all; that it would be more prudent to recognise that it was made for the few and that it was brought to bear upon the others; that in principle it applies to all citizens, but that it is addressed principally to the most numerous and least enlightened classes.

it seems to me that the idea of justice in itself is an idea which in effect has been invented and put to work in different types of societies as an instrument of a certain political and economic power or as a weapon against that power.

the pillory was abolished in France in 1789 and in England in 1837.

in a classless society, I am not sure that we would still use this notion of justice

Those who carry out the penalty tend to become an autonomous sector; justice is relieved of responsibility for it by a bureaucratic concealment of the penalty itself. It is typical that in France the administration of the prisons should for so long have been the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior, while responsibility for the bagnes, for penal servitude in the convict ships and penal settlements, lay with the Ministry of the Navy or the Ministry of the Colonies.

And the sentence that condemns or acquits is not simply a judgement of guilt, a legal decision that lays down punishment; it bears within it an assessment of normality and a technical prescription for a possible normalization. Today the judge- magistrate or juror certainly does more than 'judge'.

The guillotine takes life almost without touching the body, just as prison deprives of liberty or a fine reduces wealth.

Women's rights must not be treated as trivial adjuncts to great questions of war and peace, poverty and development. What's at stake are not lifestyles but lives.

I'm sworn to uphold his laws. Saying that you killed someone because they annoyed you isn't codified as acceptable, by those laws, anywhere I'm aware of. You are clearly not looking carefully enough.

Power such as mine is only granted for one reason - to protect those with less, against yours. Power such as yours? Sarillorn, if the power that you wield is too great a responsibility, I will take it from you; you may then have peace, knowing that there is nothing at all that you can do.

We should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it. As individuals, we can make a difference, whether it is to probe the secrets of Nature, to clean up the environment and work for peace and social justice, or to nurture the inquisitive, vibrant spirit of the young by being a mentor and a guide.

I was a ruthless bastard with a twisted mind who could look on death and find it pleasant. I could break an arm or smash in a face because it was easier that way than asking questions. I could out-fox the fox with a line of reasoning that laughed at the truth because I was the worst of the lot and never did deserve to live. That's what that damned judge thought anyway.