Lady Justice's Blindfold

For millennia, the concept of justice has been represented by the image of a woman (Justia, or Lady Justice) wearing a toga and holding a set of scales in one hand and a sword in the other. The scales represent the ideal of weighing each side of a dispute against the other in determining a just reso...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCopyright & New Media Law Newsletter Vol. 20; no. 4; p. 2
Main Author McCord, Gretchen
Format Trade Publication Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Austin Digital Information Law 01.12.2016
Subjects
Justice
Society
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Summary:For millennia, the concept of justice has been represented by the image of a woman (Justia, or Lady Justice) wearing a toga and holding a set of scales in one hand and a sword in the other. The scales represent the ideal of weighing each side of a dispute against the other in determining a just resolution. The sword has been said to represent Lady Justice's willingness to enforce her decisions ofjustice when necessary or, more often, simply the power of the law. What catches my interest is the most recent addition to Lady Justice's ensemble: the blindfold. The blindfold represents impartiality and blindness to temptation, but it didn't appear until the fifteenth century. Even now, six hundred years later, it is not used consistently, as the scales and sword are. Modern depictions of Lady Justice often include the blindfold, but they often do not.
ISSN:1206-8586