Reflections on justice values and a glimpse at the future.

• Author: Sapers, Howard

The values which guide justice are timeless. Fairness, equality, proportionality and impartiality are cornerstones which have been foundations for justice across cultures and time. What changes is their relative importance and the articulation of individual values at any given moment.

Influencing the weighting of justice values have been a host of societal phenomena. Rapid economic change, significant demographic shifts, internal or international conflict, and the distribution of wealth are amongst the factors that impact which values a society emphasizes as it pursues justice. The coming century will be characterized by large inter-generational transfers of wealth, increased globalization of trade and commerce, decreased state regulation, increased decentralization, the search for local autonomy and meaning within an increasingly homogenous world and the rise of importance of individual actions. Values and principles which shape and define justice will ebb and flow as social currents demand, but will retain a core of meaning. In this regard, the next century will be not unlike the last.

Because tolerance and expectations regarding human behavior and interaction vary over time and across communities, justice itself must be flexible enough to allow for discretion and innovation. The process of doing justice is an excruciatingly human one, and will never be perfect. The need to emphasize different goals at different times in different places will create a tension reflective of the many dimensions of the pursuit of fairness in a complex society.

There are several current expressions of justice values, principles and goals. They often reflect the bias or focus of their author or sponsoring agency. Nevertheless, they contain a consistent thread. Broad statements can be helpful in understanding how the present day mix of social issues and pressures impact on the pillars of justice. In October of 1998, the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice in Canada published their Second Progress Report for the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice, Government of Canada in which they included a set of principles which they endorsed as guiding their work:

* The criminal justice system is a social instrument to enforce society's values, standards and prohibitions through the democratic process and within the rule of law;

* The broad objective of the criminal justice system is to contribute to the...