Lady Justice

Of all the issues involved in the representation of Lady Justice, that of her blindfold is undoubtedly the most disputed one. Sightlessness is problematic: is it a sign of disability, or a token of impartiality? One way of contributing to this issue is to show how the blindfold itself is polysemic. Its nature is ambivalent: Justitia must see, she is oculatissima. According to the Renaissance thinker Caelius Rhodiginus, the eye is the symbol of justice, iustitiae servator (Lady Justice’s servant) and Chrysippus (279-206 BC), quoted by Aulus Gellius, emphasised the glance of her eyes. At the end of the fifteenth century, Lady Justice’s blindfold was used as a negative attribute. The earliest known representation of a blindfolded Lady Justice is a satirical woodcut for Sebastian Brant’s Das Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools, 1494), in which the author criticised the abuse of trials and the foolishness of court quarellings. However, Lady Justice’s blindfold is not necessarily meant as a negative attribute. The act of blindfolding Justitia is a paradoxical gesture, and as such it deserves a detailed analysis. The paradoxical nature of the blindfold is very productive: Is it a sign of blindness? A necessary avoidance of lucidity? A momentaneous disregard of the evidence put before the eyes? A mark of ecstasy? A shameful stigma? A trick? A game? A mark of derision? The list of questions shows the many ways of reading this sign, dependent on its viewers, contexts, and intentions.

The symbolism that has long embodied our justice images has gradually eroded. Whereas our justice symbols may have once reminded us of the spiritual nature of our longing for justice, they have been replaced by those meant to evoke secrecy and detachment. Lady Justice has become the emblem for our resignation to settle for predictability in laws, even when we might have wished to stay true to our aspirations for justice and dared to dream of cooperation and harmony. In recent time, Lady Justice herself is increasingly replaced by a simple scale as the prevailing image of justice, signifying that human intervention in justice may no longer be required since the system for which we have settled has acquired a life of its own. Such an erosion is both a threat to the authority structures that such symbols depict and a promise for renewal. This chapter considers the symbolism of our justice images and the ways in which it may constrain our collective imagination. It suggests that our justice mythology, of which our human rights discourse is part, must be renewed and put at the service of another vision for our future together, particularly one that is less legalistic and less nationalistic.

Dr Wallis’ article1 is a plea for mediated settlements (rather than judicial decisions) to determine medical disputes in childhood. His reasonable proposal may underestimate both the similarity of his solution...

This article explores the complex role of political ideologies in everyday politics and for urban middle-class Bangladeshis’ evaluation of political parties. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research and, more specifically, conversations and contentions around the removal of ‘Lady Justice’ from the front of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in 2017, I show that although the Awami League continues to be considered a ‘secular party’, many people do not believe that the Awami League is implementing secular policy and criticise it for what they perceive as ‘hypocrisy’. I argue that this seemingly paradoxical situation can be explained by a political structure that is marked by high factionalism and party competition. Data from research among politicians and the left-leaning, so-called ‘culturally-minded’ milieu in Sylhet, shows that certain segments of the educated middle class acknowledge the pragmatic realities of politics and do not expect the Awami League to act ‘progressively’. Nonetheless, they continue to position the party’s ‘progressive’ and ‘secular’ ideological basis as a primary reason for supporting the party. The article thus contributes to a deeper understanding of contemporary popular and elite practices and perceptions of party politics, democracy, and what might be labelled the ‘party-state effect’.

This article focuses on late Medieval French literary texts where the image of judiciary is prevalent as an allegorical figure of Justice or as allegorical scenes of the judgement. In 14th — 15th centuries allegory as any other trope is often used in literary works as an instrument of expression of political and philosophical ideas and concepts, as a reflection on transformations of society. Step by step the allegory of Justice transforms from a theological and philosophical concept of a virtue, the “divine justice”, to a crucial element of the description of the state, a symbol for the principle of justice. In the works of Philippe de Mézières and Christine de Pisan “Lady Justice” embodies, personifies the principle of fair government and judiciary in general, which in the following centuries will evolve in the figure of Themis, the patroness of justice.

The Institute of Social Sciences of the CSPS of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice is an interdisciplinary workplace of social sciences and humanities with a primary research focus on the area of Central Europe in the field of social psychology, sociology and history.

Following the recent publication of the sixth and final report from the Shipman Inquiry (The Shipman Inquiry, 2005), Lady Justice Janet Smith held an informal lecture on her investigations into the case of Harold Shipman, on Tuesday 22 February 2005, at the Institute of Electrical Engineers, London.

PurposeDespite the preservation of “One Country, Two Systems” for 50 years under the Sino-British Joint Declaration and Basic Law, changes are palpable due to the emergence of a real contest between liberal and pro-China actors in the legal profession and the legal environment in Hong Kong. After celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s sovereignty transfer from Britain to China, it is valuable to study how the sovereign power influence the rule of law in its semiautonomous city by non-legal measures. This paper aims to offer a preliminary research on China’s political economic strategy, which is regarded as the “China factor”, in the legal system of Hong Kong, and its political, economic and legal-cultural impacts on the rule of law.Design/methodology/approachThis paper argues that China exerts its influence over the legal system of Hong Kong in four domains, including ideology, political elections, legal organization and cross-border political economy. Based on media research and content analysis over published materials of various legal associations and institutions, it is found that China attempts to consolidate its control in Hong Kong by producing alternative legal ideology and discourse of the rule of law and by co-opting the legal profession under China’s united front strategy.FindingsWhile there are liberal lawyers and legal scholars vocally engaging in defense of human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong, a network of legal profession promoting socialist and authoritarian legal values has become prominent. Hong Kong’s legal culture will continue to be shaped in accordance with authoritarian characteristics and will adversely affect developing the rule of law in this international city.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the study of China’s influence over the legal profession of Hong Kong and in general Hong Kong’s jurisdiction by offering an example to the international community that contributes towards understanding how China adopts different strategies to expand political significance beyond its border.

UNICE Global Brain Project: "Creating a Global, Independent, Public-Policy Answer-Engine That Will Facilitate Governance, While Preparing for and Reducing the Dangers of Artificial General Intelligence."

Gendering Transatlantic Anti-Slavery History Marilyn Walker (bio) In Women, Dissent, & Anti-Slavery in Britain & America, 1790–1865 (Oxford, 2011), Elizabeth J. Clapp, Julie Roy Jeffrey, and a plethora of historians explore the activism of British and American women abolitionists and the powerful role of religion in their humanitarian mission to end the slave trade and slavery. Commissioned by the Dr. Williams Centre for Dissenting Studies, the collection focuses on Puritanism and Protestant Dissent. Non-conformists (Methodists, Evangelicals, Quakers, Puritans, Pilgrims, Baptists, Catholics, and Separatists) include sects outside of the Church of England.1 From the Restoration through the early Victorian Period, they were subject to discrimination because of their beliefs, methods of worship, and disavowal of Anglican doctrine. They were unable to attend universities such as Cambridge and Oxford without an oath, cast a vote for parliamentary representation, or work for local or national government (7). They were second-class citizens in England. In search of religious liberty outside of the boundaries of Britain, in 1620, some non-conformists sought exile in Holland and North America.2 The majority of Dissenters in England and America cherished an unmediated relationship with God, enthusiastic worship, and desire for reform in the Church of England. Their descendants would advocate for the physical freedom of slaves in the modern world. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women of a variety of socio-economic classes also endured discrimination and social and institutional oppression. In England, women were unable to attend university, own property within the confines of marriage, or vote for parliamentary representation. Thus, in an interdisciplinary manner, Women, Dissent, & Anti-Slavery illuminates a nexus between a transatlantic Dissenting tradition and women’s persistent activism against African slavery. With contributors such as Clapp, Jeffrey, David Turley, Claire Midgley, and Stacey Robertson, this collection also brings many activists (e.g., Martha Gurney, Mary-Anne Rawson, Ann Taylor Gilbert, Mary Davis, Susan Bishop, Sarah Ernst) to the forefront of the history of abolition and provides a multidimensional appraisal of well-known anti-slavery writers such [End Page 401] as Elizabeth Heyrick and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Studies such as Moira Ferguson’s Subject to Others: British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery 1670–1834, Karen Sánchez-Eppler’s Touching Liberty: Abolition, Feminism, and The Politics of the Body, and Midgley’s Women against Slavery: The British Campaigns 1780–1870 also provide extensive histories about protest through domestic economy, theatrical productions, literature, petitions, and boycotts.3 This most recent book intently focuses upon the belief systems that inspired women on both sides of the Atlantic to resoundingly reject slavery in Africa, the West Indies, and the American South. Women, Dissent, & Anti-Slavery also relies on the juxtaposition of iconic images of slavery and freedom. Complementing chapters about women’s devotion to their religious communities and civic engagement, a visual and verbal representation of the British and American movement is prominently displayed on the dust jacket of the book. In the late eighteenth century, Josiah Wedgewood and British women’s societies (such as the Female Society of Birmingham, and the Manchester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society) created and circulated artistic representations of visual messages of one of the earliest liberation movements.4 The original artwork was a male figure with shackled hands and this emotional appeal appeared on publications, brooches, quilts, pottery, and hairpins. Resembling the history and traditions examined within the text, the dust jacket features Thomas Halliday’s medallion, “Slavery abolished by Great Britain, 1834,” a feminized depiction of multiple abolitionist themes. Beneath the depiction of the enslaved woman (with shackled hands) and Lady Justice, a populist and universal rhetorical question appears: “Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?” Seemingly, this is the enslaved woman’s plea to Lady Justice and potential emancipators beyond the scope of the medallion. In a penultimate plea to the viewer, Halliday’s emblematic medallion proclaims, “Let us break their hands asunder and cast away their cords,” a reference to Psalms 2:3.5 His medallion solicits the agency of the audience to act on behalf of brethren under the yoke. “Slavery abolished by Great Britain, 1834” was also printed on the cover of Lydia Maria Child’s Authentic Anecdotes of American Slavery (1838...

The stories told in Grant County and around Indiana and the nation about the events of August 7 were eventually told in courts of law. Lady Justice, scale in hand, perched atop the dome of the courthouse, but she lacked sufficient strength or wisdom to punish a single person for the deaths of Tom Shipp and Abe Smith. Inside her courthouse the white community of Grant County used the machinery of justice to state their solidarity, to draw boundaries of separation, and to demonstrate their power over their black neighbors.KeywordsAttorney GeneralGood CitizenWhite CommunityCity PoliceGrand JuryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

5 Lady Justice and the judge’s body: maimed hands, bare knee

This paper discusses the possible use of functional magnetic-resonance imaging as potentially useful in jury selection. The author suggests that neuro-voir could provide greater impartiality of trials than the standard voir, while also preserving existing privacy protections for jurors. He predicts that ability to image and understand a wide range of brain activities, most notably bias-apprehension and lie detection, will render neuro-voir dire invaluable. However currently, such neuro-solutions remain preliminary.

Back to table of contents Next article Taking IssueFull AccessWeighing Scientific Evidence: Let's Keep the Blindfold OffBonnie T. Zima M.D., M.P.H.,Bonnie T. Zima M.D., M.P.H.Search for more papers by this author,Published Online:1 Feb 2010https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2010.61.2.107AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Lady Justice—or Justitia, the Roman goddess of justice—holds a double-edged sword in her right hand and a scale in her left, and sometimes she is blindfolded. The blindfold symbolizes the ideal of weighing evidence with impartiality. However, in the case of scientific evidence, scrutiny and deliberation are required to find the balance point in measuring the strength of evidence and its applicability to a clinical decision.The findings of a study reported in this issue, "Evidence-Based Use of Second-Generation Antipsychotics in a State Medicaid Pediatric Population, 2001–2005," require careful scrutiny because they could be misinterpreted as indicating overuse or inappropriate use of these agents to treat children. Conclusions about the appropriateness of medication treatment that are based on claims data are limited because the validity of the diagnosis cannot be established from such data and the clinical rationale for prescribing a particular drug is missing. The authors of the report acknowledge that they were unable to link the diagnoses recorded in the Medicaid claims to the index prescription of the antipsychotic.Nevertheless, on the basis of the design and sample size of published studies and diagnoses from claims data, these investigators rated the strength of evidence for each initial prescription of a second-generation antipsychotic for 11,700 children between 2001 and 2005. During this period none of these agents were approved for pediatric use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the majority of published reports that included children were open-label studies involving risperidone. One medication, aripiprazole, was approved for adult use in November 2002. Was the study premature to apply ratings of evidence strength? Or by applying the ratings at a time when the evidence base was not strong, did the study simply reflect the fact that prescribers were exercising their clinical judgment in making medication decisions for high-risk children?Either way, the study illuminates the larger debate about what constitutes substantial evidence of the safety and effectiveness of psychotropic medications prescribed to children. In 1962 the proposed FDA criterion for "substantial evidence" of effectiveness was "at least two adequate and well-controlled studies, each convincing on its own, to establish effectiveness." With the FDA Modernization Act of 1997, the criterion was relaxed to "one adequate and well-controlled clinical investigation and confirmatory evidence," and rules were revised to allow for extrapolation from adult efficacy data to pediatric patients. National efforts have also been made to standardize approaches to rating scientific evidence. These approaches acknowledge a subjective component in the assessment of research methods to "weigh" scientific evidence. Given the need for more long-term studies to establish the safety and efficacy of antipsychotics for children in real-world settings, let's keep Lady Justice's blindfold off during our deliberations.UCLA-Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByLetterPrathamesh Pathak, M.S., B.Pharm.Donna West, Ph.D.Bradley C. Martin, Pharm.D., Ph.D.1 March 2010 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 61, No. 3LetterMuhamad Aly Rifai, M.D.1 March 2010 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 61, No. 3LetterOurania K. Kakisi, M.D.Drosos E. Karageorgopoulos, M.D.Matthew E. Falagas, M.D., D.Sc.1 March 2010 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 61, No. 3LetterHerng-Ching Lin, Ph.D.Ling-Yu Yang, M.A.Wen-Ta Chiu, M.D.1 March 2010 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 61, No. 3LetterJonathan D. Brown, Ph.D., M.H.S.Ellen Singer, M.A.Henry T. Ireys, Ph.D.1 March 2010 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 61, No. 3 Volume 61Issue 2 February, 2010Pages 107-107PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES February 2010 Volume 61 Number 2 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 February 2010 Published in print 1 February 2010

3 Lady Justice’s fingers: gesture and meaning