ARTICLE III: ON THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE

587. The first part is proved. - For it is proper to justice to preserve to each one his right, and violation of another's right from its genus speaks a grave disorder. I said: from its genus, not from its whole genus; because in this matter smallness of matter is admitted, as is clear to all.

The second part is proved. - For justice regards equality of thing to thing; but an injury of this cannot be repaired except through restitution, or, as long as inequality remains, the obligation of reducing equality also remains; and the one injuring sins by preserving inequality, just as he sinned by inducing it.

The other species of justice, namely legal justice, distributive justice, and, if it pleases one to admit this as a fourth species of justice, vindicative justice, also obligate under grave sin, but OF THEMSELVES not with the burden of restitution.

588. The first part is proved. - For injury to these introduces grave disorder, and necessarily harms the order of society gravely.

The second part is proved. - For he who violates, for example, legal or distributive justice indeed acts against the common good, or does not preserve the due proportion in distributing common goods, yet he takes away from no one what is his, nor does he deprive anyone of a thing which is his. Therefore of itself he is not obligated to restitution.

I said: OF THEMSELVES not with the burden of restitution. For often commutative justice is joined to the others, and injury to it induces the burden of restitution. Thus a Superior, magistrates, and a judge are bound to restore when by grave negligence in punishing, or in assigning the unworthy to public offices, they are the cause why private persons or the community suffer grave damage; in which case they are guilty not only of not having procured the common good, to which legal justice inclines, but also of having violated the contract by which, by this very fact that they undertook the office, they tacitly obligated themselves to guarding against damages of subjects. Yet more probably he is not bound to restitution who distributes offices of society to the less worthy; because he does not violate the strict right of the more worthy, nor of the community, which by strict right cannot demand anything else except that the unworthy, from whom damage is to be feared, be kept from offices.¹ But otherwise if in a contest the Superior preferred the less worthy to the more worthy; because in a contest there intervenes a pact from which strict right belongs to the more worthy.

Nor is he bound to restitution who distributes merely honorific dignities - whether to the less worthy, or even to the unworthy; because he has deprived no one of his strict right, although he has sinned through acceptance of persons.

Here it can be asked whether and when, from the sentence of a judge, a strict obligation of justice arises?

Resp. 1° "The sentence of a judge produces an obligation of the same genus as the law itself according to which it is pronounced. Therefore ... in a penal cause it imposes an obligation of obedience, because penal laws are to be observed not from justice strictly so called, but from obedience, so that the fine or penalty imposed by a judge is to be paid not from strict justice, but from obedience."

Resp. 2° "That the sentence of a judge constitute an obligation of strict justice, it is required that the law itself, whence it has all its force, define the strict right of citizens, e.g. a just sentence of a judge concerning paying a legacy, in a singular cause judged, imposes upon the heir an obligation of strict justice, with the burden of restitution; but from the sentence of a judge rendered against parents or children according to a law which obligates from piety, an obligation of piety, without the burden of restitution, arises."

Resp. 3° "When from a certain law a certain obligation arises, the sentence of a judge does not 'wish' or at least does not 'have power' to remove it, e.g. if someone from a contract which is indeed certain but" which cannot be proved in the way prescribed by law, "owes a thing to another, the sentence of the judge which rejects the action ... of the creditor because of defect of legitimate proof in no way removes the obligation of the debtor to provide the thing agreed upon. But in a doubtful cause, whether there is doubt concerning right or concerning fact, it is licit with a safe conscience to stand by the sentence of the judge; for judges are constituted for this reason, that they may resolve doubts."¹