Does the feeling of injustice authorize recourse to illegality?

justice (countable and uncountable, plural justices)

1. The state or characteristic of being just or fair.
2. The ideal of fairness, impartiality, etc., especially with regard to the punishment of wrongdoing.
3. Judgment and punishment of a party who has allegedly wronged another.
4. The civil power dealing with law.
5. A title given to judges of certain courts; capitalized when placed before a name.
6. Correctness, conforming to reality or rules.

Judgment and punishment of a party who has allegedly wronged another.

Source: justice, Wiktionary (6 points), 17/11/2024.

Justice, in its broadest sense, is the concept that individuals are to be treated in a manner that is equitable and fair

A society in which justice has been achieved would be one in which individuals receive what they “deserve”. The interpretation of what “deserve” means draws on a variety of fields and philosophical branches including ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness. The state may be said to pursue justice by operating courts and enforcing their rulings.

Source: Justice, Wikipedia EN, 17/11/2024.

A personal translation

Justice brings together universal principles that require respect for the law and fairness. These principles are inspired by habeas corpus (1679), which aimed to guarantee individual freedom in the face of arbitrariness. In this context, every accused person has the right to a trial and to be defended by a lawyer. The debates at the trial must be adversarial and the defense, like the prosecution, must have access to the file that explains the charges against the accused person. State representatives must be impartial. In France, offences (theft, drug trafficking, etc.) are punishable by the criminal court and the maximum penalties incurred are five years. Crimes (homicide, physical violence and rape, terrorism, etc.) are judged by a assize court, composed of three professional magistrates and nine jurors. The court of appeal, seized by the defense or the prosecution, can confirm or overturn a judgment. The court of cassation can overturn a judgment, but only if the rules of procedure have not been respected. Crimes against humanity are imprescriptible. Fines, in particular for traffic violations, are notified by a police court. The industrial tribunal is competent for disputes that arise in the world of work. Juvenile justice is rendered by a special jurisdiction. Depending on the seriousness of the acts, minors are judged by the juvenile judge, by a juvenile court or by the juvenile assize court.

Source: justice, Larousse, a French dictionary, 17/11/2024.

law (countable and uncountable, plural laws)

1. (usually with “the”) The body of binding rules and regulations, customs and standards established in a community by its legislative and judicial authorities.
2. A binding regulation or custom established in a community in this way.
3. (more generally) A rule (7 points).
4. The control and order brought about by the observance of such rules.

(…following…)

Source: law, Wiktionary (12 points), 17/11/2024.

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative body, a stage in the process of legislation. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are laws made by legislative bodies; they are distinguished from case law or precedent, which is decided by courts, regulations issued by government agencies, and oral or customary law. Statutes may originate with the legislative body of a country, state or province, county, or municipality.

The word “statute” is derived from the late Latin word “statutum”, which means ‘law’, ‘decree’.

Source : Loi, Wikipédia EN, 17/11/2024.

A personal translation of the definition

In the broad sense, the law (cf. Larousse dictionary) is the set of customary and written standards in force whose binding nature ensures a minimum of social cohesion (in this sense, the “law” covers the notion of “right”).

For a long time, the law was associated with the idea of ​​divinity: in Antiquity, in Greece or in the Rome of kings, it was in the name of the gods that individuals issued standards valid for the entire social body. “Law and religion were one” states the historian Fustel de Coulanges in La Cité antique (1854). Until the 18^th century, the Ancien Régime in France was a monarchy “by divine right”. The concept of law as an expression of the popular will was developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau during the Age of Enlightenment. From the French Revolution onwards, it became one of the fundamental principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), which established an essential part of French law and democratic regimes. Article 6 of the 1789 Declaration stipulates that “the law is the expression of the general will“, and adds that “all citizens have the right to contribute personally or through their representatives to its formation”. In its strict sense, “law” therefore designates the standards that emanate from Parliament, which is the elected representative of the entire people.

The same article establishes the general and obligatory character of the law: “it must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes.”

Source : loi (law), Larousse, a French dictionary, 17/11/2024.

“An eye for an eye” (Biblical Hebrew: עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן, ʿayīn taḥaṯ ʿayīn) is a commandment found in the Book of Exodus 21:23–27 expressing the principle of reciprocal justice measure for measure. The earliest known use of the principle appears in the Code of Hammurabi, which predates the writing of the Hebrew Bible but not necessarily oral traditions.

The law of exact retaliation (Latin: lex talionis), or reciprocal justice, bears the same principle that a person who has injured another person is to be penalized to a similar degree by the injured party. In softer interpretations, it means the victim receives the [estimated] value of the injury in compensation. The intent behind the principle was to restrict compensation to the value of the loss.

Source: Eye for an eye, Wikipedia EN, 17/11/2024.

The Salic law (/ˈsælɪk/ or /ˈseɪlɪk/; Latin: Lex salica), also called the Salian law, was the ancient Frankish civil law code compiled around AD 500 by the first Frankish King, Clovis. The written text is in Late Latin and contains some of the earliest known instances of Old Dutch. It remained the basis of Frankish law throughout the early Medieval period, and influenced future European legal systems. The best-known tenet of the old law is the principle of exclusion of women from inheritance of thrones, fiefs, and other property. The Salic laws were arbitrated by a committee appointed and empowered by the King of the Franks. Dozens of manuscripts dating from the sixth to eighth centuries and three emendations as late as the ninth century have survived.

Salic law provided written codification of both civil law, such as the statutes governing inheritance, and criminal law, such as the punishment for murder. Although it was originally intended as the law of the Franks, it has had a formative influence on the tradition of statute law that extended to modern history in much of Europe, especially in the German states and Austria-Hungary in Central Europe, the Low Countries in Western Europe, Balkan kingdoms in Southeastern Europe, and parts of Italy and Spain in Southern Europe. Its use of agnatic succession governed the succession of kings in kingdoms such as France and Italy.

Source: Salic law, Wikipedia EN, 17/11/2024.

Magna Carta Libertatum (Medieval Latin for “Great Charter of Freedoms”), commonly called Magna Carta or sometimes Magna Charta (“Great Charter”), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift and impartial justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood by their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons’ War.

Source: Magna Carta, Wikipedia EN, 17/11/2024.

Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world.

The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. Under the actions of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, chattel slavery has been abolished across Japan since 1590, though other forms of forced labour were used during World War II. The first and only country to self-liberate from slavery was actually a former French colony, Haiti, as a result of the Revolution of 1791–1804. The British abolitionist movement began in the late 18th century, and the 1772 Somersett case established that slavery did not exist in English law. In 1807, the slave trade was made illegal throughout the British Empire, though existing slaves in British colonies were not liberated until the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Vermont was the first state in America to abolish slavery in 1777. By 1804, the rest of the northern states had abolished slavery but it remained legal in southern states. By 1808, the United States outlawed the importation of slaves but did not ban slavery —except as a punishment— until 1865.

A suffragette was a member of an activist women’s organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner “Votes for Women”, fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members of the British Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience. In 1906, a reporter writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, derived from suffragist (any person advocating for voting rights), in order to belittle the women advocating women’s suffrage. The militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU.

To be a suffragist or a suffragette?

The Manifesto of the 343 (French: Manifeste des 343) is a French petition penned by Simone de Beauvoir, and signed by 343 women, all publicly declaring that they had had an illegal abortion. The manifesto was published under the title, “Un appel de 343 femmes” (‘an appeal by 343 women’), on 5 April 1971, in issue 334 of Le Nouvel Observateur, a social democratic French weekly magazine. The piece was the sole topic on the magazine cover. At the time abortion was illegal in France, and by admitting publicly to having aborted, women exposed themselves to criminal prosecution.

The manifesto called for the legalization of abortion and free access to contraception. It paved the way for the “Veil Act” — named for Health Minister Simone Veil — which repealed the penalty for voluntarily terminating a pregnancy. The law was passed in December 1974 and January 1975, and afforded women the ability to abort during the first ten weeks (later extended to fourteen weeks)

Rosa Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”.