"A law that is not just, seems to be no law at all"

LAWS framed by man are either just or unjust. If they be just, they have the power of binding in conscience, from the eternal law whence they are derived, according to Proverbs 8:15: "By Me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things." Now laws are said to be just, both from the end, when, to wit, they are ordained to the common good─and from their author, that is to say, when the law that is made does not exceed the power of the lawgiver─and from their form, when, to wit, burdens are laid on the subjects, according to an equality of proportion and with a view to the common good. For, since one man is a part of the community, each man in all that he is and has, belongs to the community; just as a part, in all that it is, belongs to the whole; wherefore nature inflicts a loss on the part, in order to save the whole: so that on this account, such laws as these, which impose proportionate burdens, are just and binding in conscience, and are legal laws.

On the other hand laws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to human good, through being opposed to the things mentioned above─either in respect of the end, as when an authority imposes on his subjects burdensome laws, conducive, not to the common good, but rather to his own cupidity or vainglory─or in respect of the author, as when a man makes a law that goes beyond the power committed to him─or in respect of the form, as when burdens are imposed unequally on the community, although with a view to the common good. The like are acts of violence rather than laws; because, as Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5), "a law that is not just, seems to be no law at all." Wherefore such laws do not bind in conscience, except perhaps in order to avoid scandal or disturbance, for which cause a man should even yield his right, according to Matthew 5:40-41: "If a man . . . take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him; and whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two."

Secondly, laws may be unjust through being opposed to the Divine good: such are the laws of tyrants inducing to idolatry, or to anything else contrary to the Divine law: and laws of this kind must nowise be observed, because, as stated in Acts 5:29, "we ought to obey God rather than man."

~St. Thomas Aquinas: S.T. I-II, q. 96, a. 4. (Whether human law binds a man in conscience?)

Allegory of the Good Government, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

Fresco, 1338-40; Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.

Allegory of Bad Government (detail),

by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

Rommen: “There is no law without morality"

“THERE is no law without morality. An immoral law is a contradiction in terms or simply a statement of fact, namely, that this positive legal norm conflicts with the moral law and hence can impose no obligation, though the state may have the physical power to enforce it. The will to achieve an ever greater approximation of the positive law to the norms of morality is so deeply rooted in man that even the positive law is always referring to morality. Often enough the judge, as was already the case among the Romans with their doctrine of aequitas, is not content with a mechanical subsuming of particular instances under the general norm but allows equity to play its part. In extreme cases, however, he goes back to the will of the lawmaker, who is assumed to will only what is moral; or, if the literal meaning of the law is impossible, he puts forward an independent interpretation of the meaning of the law, on the ground that the lawgiver could not have willed anything unjust.”

~Heinrich A. Rommen: Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy, p. 188.

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