What is Justice?

Fogy, winding his way through a foggy mountain pass — When Precedents are Set.*

Much of our belief in justice has been lost. Why, you might ask?

Largely through our own ignorance of what justice actually is — and how its interpretation is shaped by those who wield the law.

Law is more than fifty shades of grey. Its supposed clarity — separating right from wrong, black from white — is as cloudy as race day in Spa-Francorchamps, and just as unpredictable.

Not only opaque, the law is also jurisdiction-bound, politically tilted, and culturally driven.

Philosophically, it is meant to be the written reflection of society’s long debates about what justice should mean. But no two cases are the same. Each carries its own mitigating factors, its own context. The assumption — often fragile — is that the “letter of the law” can be understood and upheld by the majority.

Why then do we need laws at all?

Because the “social contract” we tacitly accept is laced with countless unwritten rules: how we behave, dress, drive, speak. The written law is called upon when those invisible guardrails fail — when punishment must be formalized. And so the police are tasked with enforcing statutes that may or may not feel just.

Justice, then, is not merely handed down — it is something we all shape, consciously or unconsciously, often without ever pausing to examine its foundations.

And here we come to precedent. Past rulings weigh heavily on future ones. Once set, they ripple outward. If a poor person is convicted of a petty crime without fair defense, the precedent risks condemning all poor alike. If a president is convicted, only to be pardoned or annulled for procedural flaws, that too becomes a precedent — a signal for the future.

A responsible legal system must therefore do more than enforce: it must also review, monitor, and correct what has been wrongly decided.

Can Bolsonaro’s case be overturned as Lula’s was? Hardly likely. The differences are greater than the similarities, even if they appear to echo one another. Lula’s annulment may serve as precedent for some future disputes, but probably not this one.

Only time, that oldest of judges, will tell.

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