The Architecture of Injustice: Why the System Protects Power, Not People
- Megan Maysie
- Dec 4, 2025
- 11 min read
Updated: Dec 8, 2025
Justice, that magnificent ideal that has always been worth striving for, worth dying for, is intrinsically linked to the legal system. Key milestones have shaped modern legal traditions, emphasising the need for order, justice, and the regulation of human behavior as human civilizations evolved. But justice ≠ law.
Injustice is not an accident of the legal system — it's a design flaw and a power dynamic
The plan originally was to create a cohesive society in which everyone substantially agreed on what the rules of acceptable behaviour were. People knew how to address infringements, and then get on with the business of living life. In a just world. Ideally.
Justice, in its purest form, serves humankind by providing the critical foundation for a peaceful, orderly, and cooperative society, ensuring fairness and equality for all individuals, and protecting fundamental human dignity. It’s the first virtue of social institutions, and is a foundational element in the constitutions of many countries.
While justice is a moral ideal rooted in human dignity, the law is merely the system we built to try to deliver it. But, too often, those who control the law reshape it to serve power, not people. People are seeking access to justice.
But does justice still serve its intended purpose, or did it ever?
What Is Justice? A Human and Philosophical Definition
Justice dictates that society decides the rules, then undertakes to live by them or face consequences that bring justice back into balance- much like the scales of justice suggest. And philosophers have been agonizing over and debating what justice is since humans first figured out how to think for themselves.
In everyday terms, justice means fairness, accountability, and the assurance that wrongs will be put right without fear or favor.
This article sets out the core principles of what justice is — and what it is not — forming the groundwork for a broader exploration of how modern power structures distort and weaponize the idea of justice on our Justice, Power & Moral Injury Hub Page.
Most agree that, at its core, justice is rendering to each his due fairness and balance, and treating like cases alike, but philosophers disagree on the details.
The ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle, who lived from 384 BC to 322 BC, understood that society is ordered around justice.
“But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.” Aristotle
Cicero, the Roman statesman, lawyer, orator, and philosopher who lived from 106 BC to 43 BC, saw the aim of justice as giving everyone his due.
"Justice is the mistress and queen of all the virtues."Cicero
But both the Greeks and the Romans may have understood the temptation to pervert and subvert justice. Aristotle also warned, about 2,300 years ago, that:
“Justice without power is inefficient; power without justice is tyranny.” Aristotle
And Cicero, too, observed that:
“The more laws a society has, the less justice."Cicero
Yet, here we are. Things got complicated. Administrative justice was separated from natural justice, and the former was then further sliced up into categories: distributive justice, retributive justice, and compensatory justice. And more job opportunities were created, with specialists demanding ever-increasingly high rates of pay.
"Fair pay for fair work" is a principle advocating for a just balance between the effort, skill, and responsibility of a job and the compensation received. And justice is a significant responsibility, and requires high levels of skill. But are the politicians who get statutes written into law, and the lawyers who aid the members of society who create the rules (theoretically)- the public- in navigating a complex legal maze, being paid for justice or for the law?
Cicero said, "The worst kind of injustice is to look for profit from injustice."
And across centuries, the same warnings of the ancient repeat: justice erodes the moment power learns it can cloak its self-interest in the language of law. And people still seek access to justice, yet sometime find only injustice in the legal system.
“Justice is a simple, magnificent thing —
until politicians and lawyers complicate it beyond recognition.”
Justice vs Law: Why They Are Not the Same Thing
Cicero observed that more laws = less justice, yet these two concepts are often perceived as inseparable. And tension still exists today as societies produce laws faster than they can produce fairness. There’s a difference between justice and law.
Justice transitioned from being a revered, worthy principle or value to being put in the hands of politicians to make and revise laws, and of lawyers to serve as a key cog, providing the societies that decide the rules they prefer to live by with redress or access to justice. With a significantly smaller group of judges tasked with ensuring that justice is, in fact, served.
There are generally five legal systems in the world today: civil law, common law, customary law, religious law, and mixed legal systems. The law was developed over thousands of years, evolving from unwritten customs in ancient societies to the complex codified systems of today that include common law- broadly based on judges' decisions over many years, and statutory, or written laws.
In simplified terms, the law in most countries is divided into criminal justice, which involves the government prosecuting an individual for a crime with the goal of punishment, and civil justice, which involves a private party suing another for a dispute, usually over money or property.
Criminal law covers wrongs committed by individuals against the body of people known collectively as "the state," and the potential penalties include incarceration. Civil law covers one individual or group's wrongdoing against another individual or group, usually resulting in financial damages but sometimes including specific delivery, for example, evictions.
The distinctions include the deciding factor of how the legal system will dispense justice, the so-called burden of proof. In criminal cases, the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. In contrast, in civil cases, the burden is the "balance of probabilities" or "preponderance of the evidence."
Criminal Justice vs Civil Justice: Key Differences Explained
To understand how different outcomes are produced, we must first examine the formal distinctions the legal system draws between criminal and civil disputes, the two “departments” of justice.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE | CIVIL JUSTICE | |
Parties | The state vs an individual or group | A person or group vs a person or group (including state departments or officials as opposed to the collective "state") |
Goal | Punishment such as incarceration | Financial damages or specific actions (eg, to enforce the return of something) |
Burden of proof | Beyond a reasonable doubt | On a “balance of probabilities” or "preponderance of the evidence," |
Type of justice | Retributive justice | Distributive justice, compensatory justice |
In both cases, after hearing from both sides, a judge rules on the way forward, providing legal certainty about how the individuals involved will move forward in their lives. For the lucky few, those animals, as George Orwell described, who are more equal than others, access to justice is seen as a moral right to take, not necessarily to give or to share.
You'll see this pattern again in our article,"When justice served means injustice, blaming the Justice Chimera is an option.
The Justice Gap: Why Billions Cannot Access the Legal System
While criminal justice has been the focus of research and debate, a growing body of literature shows that most people's legal problems are civil, rather than criminal. The
United Nations Development Program estimates that approximately 2.4 billion people live in places where state and non-state forces regularly harm or kill dissenters with impunity, and a quarter of the world's population lives in areas affected by violent conflict.
A 2019 report from the World Justice Project estimated that, globally, an estimated 5 billion people, or about two-thirds of the world's population, lack meaningful access to justice and can’t access legal systems to resolve issues like disputes over housing, employment, or family matters And many are excluded from the legal protections and opportunities that laws do provide. These unmet needs have significant consequences, leading to hardship and suffering, such as physical or mental health problems, and loss of income.
Many imagine that the justice gap exists only in what they think may be impoverished third-world countries. Yet, it certainly exists in Western countries as well. Studies and reports from international bodies such as the World Justice Project confirm that significant barriers to access to justice are prevalent in developed Western nations.
In the US, for example, a 2022 report by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) on the prevalence of unmet need suggests low-income Americans did not receive any or enough legal help for 92% of their civil legal problems, despite that 74% of low-income households experienced at least one civil legal problem in the previous year. Access to justice was denied on critical issues such as domestic violence and child custody disputes, eviction and foreclosure, and veterans' benefits.
The LSC report indicates that the primary barrier to receiving legal help is cost. Nearly half (46%) of those who didn't seek help cited concerns about cost as the reason. Many people also don't know where to look for help, or they don't perceive their problem as a "legal" issue.
But the justice gap is not an accident — it is the predictable outcome of a system designed around legal procedure rather than moral fairness. Justice vs the law is a long-running trial by public opinion, that isn’t even close to hearing the closing arguments.
The consensus among legal professionals is that the gap has become a "chasm" and access to justice is increasingly out of reach for all but the affluent. Yet one would be hard-pressed to find a significant group of lawyers making any effort to address this key cause of the problem, and many politicians are more concerned about the optics- being seen to be doing something, standing for their voters, in the interests of clinging to their lucrative positions of power.
Or at least, some of them do. There are exceptions in both groups, but the current inequitable state of the world suggests there are not nearly enough of them. A more modern voice, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche suggested:
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster.” Nietzche
The Eternal Struggle For Justice: Injustice in the Legal System
Globally, billions of people have struggled to access justice. It's often denied, or lawyers and politicians- "the legal system," finds ways to drag out access to justice for years, sometimes decades, denying victims a crucial element to healing: Justice, as the surviving victims' pain torments them for years. Some give up the struggle, some give up their lives, and some die waiting. But a few have the courage and enough life despite their trauma to pursue justice.
This is the heartbreaking real-life story of a victim who fought for justice for decades, and her now elderly mother is still fighting, from Italy:
A post from Thomas Shelby on THE KNOWLEDGE! describes the murder of 19-year-old Monia Delpero on December 13, 1989, and her mother’s 36-year struggle for justice. That evening, Monia kissed her mother goodbye and said, “I’ll be back soon.” She never returned.
Her ex-boyfriend strangled Monia, and her lifeless body was found after three days in the fields of Manerbio. Her ex had strangled her with his bare hands and stuffed her body into a garbage bag that he threw beneath a bridge. For three days, the ex joined search parties—pretending to worry, pretending to cry—while knowing exactly where Monia was.
But eventually, he confessed and was convicted. For taking the life of a young girl with her whole life ahead of her, the murderer was sentenced to just ten years and eight months, but served a little over five. In prison, he had time to get a degree, and a few short years later, he walked out, got married, and had two children- a boy and a girl.
In the post, the writer asks, “I wonder if he will ever tell his daughter: ‘Beware of men like me.’”
Neither the murderer nor his parents, who live a few kilometers from Monia’s mother, Gigliola Bono, ever apologized. Instead, a grieving mother was slapped with the additional burden of court fees- and no prospect of victim compensation.
The XVII Legislature of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian Parliament, reports that Monia's parents were served with a tax demand from Equitalia SpA, demanding €4,900 (around €11,000 now) for the costs of filing the conviction because their daughter's murderer was penniless. Italy does not provide any compensation for victims of violent crimes.
The politicians recently introduced a bill into the chamber that aims to establish a fund at the Ministry of Justice, with an annual allocation of one million euros to acknowledge the social emergency represented by certain serious crimes, such as the murder of Monia Bono. The fund could provide both compensation to victims and their survivors and any necessary funds to cover legal costs that the penniless offender is unable to cover. But it’s not retrospective.
Her name was Monia Delpero. Monia and her mother, Gigliola Bono, have been waiting for justice. For 36 years.
Gigliola Bono is still standing and standing for justice. Her story is not an anomaly — it is a case study in how legal systems can deliver procedure without delivering justice. And gives insight into how the legal system protects power.
What the world handed to Gigliola and Mona was an injustice, and natural justice will ultimately be served, whether it's karma returning the favor or a Higher Power acting in this life or the next. But her struggle deserves recognition, and her story deserves to be told.
Not only because the empaths and kind people of the world may then reach out to her and acknowledge her suffering and her courage, that may help her heal, or at least find some solace, but because, through her immense efforts, victims in her part of the world are a little closer to accessing the justice they deserve from the legal system. Despite the lawyers and politicians. And that gives her life meaning- over and above her other meaningful contributions- too.
Because the system rewards delay, complexity, and procedural maneuvering — and those who profit from the system have little incentive to simplify it. This is where injustice in the legal system prevails.
When Justice Fails Victims: Trauma, Delay, and Systemic Injustice
But victims of crime, who are almost always also trauma victims, are retraumatized every time we come up against yet another brick wall in the legal system- the infrastructure that exists to ensure we live in a cohesive society, and can live happy, thriving lives. But serves the politicians and lawyers who build lucrative ecosystems that thwart justice far too often.
A system that is indifferent to trauma cannot deliver justice; it can only deliver outcomes.
And this goes deeper than the criminal justice system. In civil courts, many people are seeking justice after traumatic events. For example, divorce cases, motor vehicle accidents, and estates, where someone close to the litigants has died, appear regularly on court rolls.
A lack of access to justice can severely impede the psychological recovery of trauma victims by perpetuating their sense of helplessness and injustice, compromising their mental health, and leading to repeated re-traumatization. You can find more comprehensive resources in our dedicated Trauma & PTSD Hub.
Why Justice Still Matters — and Why We Must Protect It
The legal industry would be well-advised to take into account that, with trauma victims, trauma often induces a sense of powerlessness. When victims are unable to have their voices heard, exercise their rights, or hold perpetrators accountable within the justice system, it perpetuates the feeling of helplessness, and engaging with a justice system that is not trauma-informed can be retraumatizing.
Victims, already having suffered an injustice, may lose faith and trust in the justice system, authority figures, and society in general. And most legal experts agree that public confidence in the legal system is key. If the public, who creates a just society and decides on the rules they wish to live by, does not believe in justice, justice will fail.
If the system blinds itself to justice, then the rest of us must keep our eyes open.
Legal system reform is a path back to justice. But this series of articles is a call to awareness, not a call to arms.