Concept of Justice During Roman Period

Justice according to the natural law and right reason

The Greek thinkers were oriented towards justice as a principle relevant to the social order. Plato argued for harmony of classes in accordance with station in life and Aristotle struggled for distributive justice. Their conception of justice was for a social order in the polis, the city-state. Subsequently, the Stoics led by Zeno held nature as a rational-whole and universal Law of Nature as the basis of natural equality and justice common to all men. Sabine opines that ‘The fundamental teaching of the Stoics was a religious conviction of the oneness and perfection of nature or a true moral order.’¹⁰ He further says that the Stoics believed that the right reason was the law of nature and the standard of what is just and right everywhere. Reason becomes the law for all men, which is unchangeable and binding on all men, ruler or subjects. We can say that the contribution of stoics lies in two aspects: (i) shift to a concept of a universal state instead of the Greek focus on polis or the city-state, and (ii) law of nature as the basis of justice instead of the morality of the individual and social classes. The Stoics’ contribution of law of nature as a moral system to which human laws should conform lays down universal standard of conduct.

The emphasis on natural law became an important thread picked up by the Roman lawyers and statesmen. Cicero spoke of right reason as ‘true law’, being eternal and unchangeable, applicable to all men. The code of Roman law has come to occupy an important place in evolution of law. During this period, law came to be differentiated into three categories — jus naturale (law of nature), jus gentium (law of nations) and jus civile (civil law, customary law of particular state). While natural law was right reason and unchangeable, law of nations was what was being practised in relations with citizens and non-citizens. For example, while natural law implies everyone is free and equal, slavery was being practised and came under law of nations. Law of nature influenced the works of Cicero and the Roman lawyers such as Gaius, Ulpian, and others. Under this tradition, justice was treated as a fixed and abiding disposition to give to every man his right and the lawyer became a ‘priest of justice.¹¹ Law as such becomes ‘the science of the just and the unjust’.