Appendix II. On Legal Justice

I. To legal justice there pertains, on the part of the ruler, determining and establishing those things which are to be furnished by subjects in relation to the common good. Thus, for example, he is held to do the following, although with respect to certain things it can be doubted whether they pertain to legal justice or to distributive justice:

1. To impose taxes; yet "private property must not be exhausted by the immensity of taxes and duties. For since the right of privately possessing goods was given not by the law of men but by nature, public authority can not abolish it, but only moderate its use and harmonize it with the common good. Therefore it would act unjustly and inhumanely if it took away from private goods more than is equitable under the name of taxes."¹

2. To provide for the defense of the republic; cf., however, what was said about war (n. 751).

3. To enact laws which protect and promote temporal prosperity, for example by taking care that, insofar as it is necessary and can be done, opportunity for working be provided,² and that in working account be taken of strength; by taking care that children not work too early nor women to the detriment of their sex or home; by preventing labor from being deprived of a just wage, etc., etc. Yet public power should take care not to thrust itself importunately into these matters.³

4. To enact laws which protect and promote religious and moral prosperity, by protecting public morality; by procuring rest from works and labors on feast days,⁴ etc., etc.

5. To recognize, or even to take care that there be instituted and furnished with the necessary authority, orders, as they are called, i.e. public institutions which regulate matters pertaining to economic life and consist of deputies of the classes to which the matters to be regulated pertain.⁵

¹ Encyclical Rerum novarum.

² Encyclical Quadragesimo anno (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1931, p. 201).

³ Encyclical Rerum novarum.

⁴ Encyclical Quadragesimo anno (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1931, p. 204).

⁵ Wagner, Die sittlichen Grundsatze bezuglich der Steuerpflicht.

II. To legal justice on the part of subjects there especially pertains observing those things which have been established by the ruler in order to the common good, for example by paying taxes justly imposed, by furnishing military service justly established, etc. But we shall speak specifically about taxes and about military service, and we shall likewise add certain things about the observance of other social laws.