“Establish Justice”, seems like an obvious purpose for our government; and it is contractually binding. Certainly you would not reject that goal. You wouldn’t agree that you are less entitled or not entitled to the same rights that any other given person in our nation is granted under the law. I suppose there might be some individuals who are, let’s say, less cognitively capable or who have some self-esteem issues which leads them to think that they do not deserve the same rights; but you don’t think of yourself as somehow unworthy of equality within in system. Besides under our law we have definitively determined that you are not allowed ‘under the law’ to abandon, relinquish, or in any way give up or forfeit your basic rights. So like it or not, you are entitled to justice in America; in fact, equal justice. No less and no more justice than anyone else. And here’s the part many of you will have a hard time with, everyone else has the exact same claim and right to the same equal justice. That’s part of the contract we agreed to.
Now not many of you remember signing the contract, but there are some who do because they did. But for the rest, the binding agreement is an inherited obligation handed down from generation to generation; additionally it is a verbal contract commitment that you made when you first claimed for yourself any of the rights granted under the Constitution. Even before that the rest of society granted you those rights as a citizen of the United States when you were born. All in all, there is no way out except complete forfeiture for citizenship and leaving. So the government owes you justice.
The difficulty with the justice purpose of government is that once we all understand that justice is part of the guarantee of our democratic system, being a part of the contract doesn’t convey what justice entails. I completely understand this problem, because it is really hard to define what justice is as it applies to our societal framework.
Given the constitutional covenant which fundamentally addresses the laws that unite us, justice would be principally the realm where we interact with each other under our laws. The government’s purpose with respect to justice is to insure that laws are applied uniformly and equitably. This includes protecting citizens’ rights by providing the governmental infrastructure that administers justice: the courts, law enforcement, and god-protect us government lawyers. It includes the legislature’s duty to make laws that abide by the principle of justice, no matter how bad they are at it. Thankfully we have the checks and balances within our structure that provides the opportunity to limit and correct their errors of judgment, intent and foolishness.
The societal questions that abound around treating citizens fairly is the most difficult aspect of justice. The problem here is that determining what is fair is often not a legal issue and not related to the law. The purpose of justice when it comes to questions of fairness is for the government to be able to justify to the people and all branches of government that what is deemed fair, is deemed far under the law. So a progressive tax rate is often argued as unfair, but the principle of justice is not the basis of determining whether it is fair or not. Justice only requires that it is within the legal jurisdiction of the government and that the tax laws do not violate the obligation to apply the law justly to all.
In a democracy, Justice is a core purpose of government. If the government does not insure and deliver justice then the government will ultimately run afoul of its other constitutional contractual obligations; and the consequences of this failure are emblematic of our very founding.
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