It is called justice to the service or public good that aims to solve problems between individuals or legal entities. It is also a moral concept that proposes to give what the person deserves. In any case, there is an obvious relationship between the meanings. within a society, justice can never be fully exercised, but always exists as an ideal or a goal to reach. For this, each society dictates its laws and creates institutions to provide the desired response. Given this circumstance, it is not surprising that justice has been implemented in a limited way since ancient times. In this sense, there are notable differences in the way this type of circumstance was exercised both in the past and in the present, but there are also notable coincidences.
In primitive societies, the penalty for committing a wrongdoing was disproportionate. In fact, stealing an object could lead to both death and mutilation. Of course, this kind of circumstance wasn’t about revenge. However, over time, it can be seen as an evolution in this respect. In the code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest and most preserved, there was a first attempt to make the penalty proportional to the crime. Thus, his sentence defined the famous phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. It may seem primitive under current circumstances, but it meant a great advance in time, as it limited the action taken against an offender to more reasonable limits.
At this time there was no distinction of powers as those present in the current republics. Power was fully exercised by one person, although the same was delegated to others. Currently, justice is represented by the power of the state , which exercises control over the executive and the legislature and is in charge of applying the laws. However, it is worth noting that laws are subject to interpretation by magistrates, and each interpretation carried out involves the creation of jurisprudence in many systems.
Thus, justice is an ideal that tries to be put into practice in a limited way. However, this attempt is of great importance for societies, as it shows within an independent justice the possibility of resolving their conflicts in a civilized manner.
