The Administration of Justice

Abstract

Individuals will always have conflicting interests and it is the function of the law to settle any dispute in a just way. For the effective dispensation of justice, the law must also be efficiently administered. Left to their own devices, and prompted by natural passions, men will often carry out their own private ‘justice’, as for example in the idea of vendetta, or will use violent means to achieve personal ends. Men may do this even despite the law, for as Portia, in The Merchant of Venice, says: ‘The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree.’ However, to prevent this from being a common occurrence there is a real need, not only for law, but also for a strong system of courts. These courts must be capable of administering the law so that the individual, rather than using his own weapons and devices, will rely on the sword and scales of justice administered through the courts of law.