Justice

Procedural Justice

Procedural justice describes how the law is made and applied. The concern is with the manner in which decisions are reached, not the content of them.

JOHN RAWLS distinguished 3 ideas of procedural justice:

Perfect procedural justice – procedure that guarantees a fair outcome will be achieved
Imperfect procedural justice – same goal as perfect, but no guarantee
Pure – no criteria for good outcome, just the procedure itself

Substantive Justice

Is the law itself just? The actual content of the law must be judged in the principle of substantive or concrete justice.

PATRICK DEVLIN – law should enforce morality. There are consensus and non-consensus laws, the latter of which could bring the judiciary and the legal process into disrepute.

Similarities

Differences

Both seek to uphold justice and produce just outcomes
Failure to abide either will incur punishment – you’ve either broken the law or failed to abide by the right procedure
In a lot of cases, the two must come together if there is prior knowledge of what is just. The justice of the procedure is assessed by their ability to achieve that outcome
Conservatives may argue that humans are imperfect and cannot determine what is just
MICHAEL OAKESHOTT – world is boundless and bottomless

Substantive is less likely to manipulated for immoral ends
Whereas procedural justice can accept where is it flawed, it is harder for believers of substantive justice to accept flaws – procedures easy to appeal
They have different origins – substantive derives from prior principle and is thus open to controversy

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