Injustice as a judicial product: A problematic tendency in legal thinking and practice

Abstract

This chapter questions a common postulate among lawyers that order is a positive aim of law, and disorder can only have negative connotations. Albeit true to a great extent, this assumption also brings about injustices when applied radically. Order is not a moral value, but a means to such values as fairness and justice. When law, order, and justice are linked together as elements of linear reasoning, order becomes an end. This, in turn, leads to a mindset that misses out on the real and potential value of chaos. The chapter analyses the concept of chaos in three ways, namely, negative, neutral, and positive, and concludes that lawyers ought to develop a more balanced attitude towards order, and pursue justice by acknowledging chaotic realities fairly. In other words, the modernist association of law with order should not be relied upon without reservations. It needs to be reminded constantly that law is a means to justice, which cannot be realised in an unbending order of any authority or convention, but through a balance of considerations for the elements of order as well as its lively counterpart, chaos.