In Colombia, a lengthy and difficult peace negotiation between the government and the FARC guerrillas laid bare that tension, pushing negotiators, victims and the Colombian society to examine and re-examine the meaning and purpose of justice in a country traumatized by five decades of conflict.
If, following Aristotle, we regard the purpose of justice as the maintenance of an equilibrium of goods among members of society, the restitution interest presents twice as strong a claim to judicial intervention as the reliance interest, since if A not only causes B to lose one unit but appropriates that unit to himself, the resulting discrepancy between A and B is not one unit but two.
In the literature on social justice there are several terms used to indicate what precisely we are assessing or measuring: the metric of advantage, the currency of justice, or the informational basis for the interpersonal comparisons for the purpose of justice.
The interrogations of captured terrorists are not conducted for the purpose of justice -- they are conducted for the purpose of gaining intelligence to save innocent lives.
Writing in the Civil Justice Quarterly last year, Mr Justice Eady said a superinjunction should not be granted "unless the court is satisfied that it is necessary for the purposes of justice".
But this loose principle in the ethics of school-boy combinations, is unworthy of mature and regulated minds, and is accordingly condemned by the laws of their country, which, in offences within their cognisance, compel those who have knowledge of a fact, to declare it for the purposes of justice, and of the general good and safety of society.
Robinson O. Everett, a professor at Duke University Law School and former chief judge of the Court of Military Appeals in Washington, said: "If I were the president, I'd look at the facts and decide what legal protections could be afforded without jeopardizing the purposes of justice.
"Subject to this restriction (of relevancy), it is, on the whole, for the public interest, and best calculated to subserve the purposes of justice, to allow counsel full freedom of speech, in conducting the causes and advocating and sustaining the rights, of their constituents; and this freedom of discussion ought not to be impaired by numerous and refined distinctions". Id., at 197-198.
What is special about meeting health needs, for purposes of justice, is that it contributes to protecting individuals' fair shares of the normal opportunity range for their society.
Is it relevant, for purposes of justice, that the pattern of distribution of justice's "currency" (be it well-being, resources, preference-satisfaction, capabilities, or something else) is aligned in one or another way with the pattern of individual desert?
The idea here is that just as Amnesty International may not require me to pay dues to it regardless of my membership even though these dues would clearly advance the protection of human rights throughout the world, so the state may not require me to comply with its commands even though such compliance would advance the purposes of justice in the world.
