Law Without Justice

Abstract: This thesis begins with a simple yet fundamental question; if law is not just, what continues to compel people to obey it? Contrary to the common assumption that the collapse of justice necessarily coincides with the collapse of legal order, the thesis argues that law can endure for extended periods even after its bond with justice has been severed. In such circumstances, what sustains law is not public belief, but a combination of habit, fear, silence, and the absence of imaginable alternatives. Adopting a conceptual and reflective approach, the thesis reconsiders the relationship between law, power, and obedience. It emphasizes that legal legitimacy is not merely a formal or institutional condition, but one that is deeply rooted in a shared sense of justice. When law is enforced without being believed in, a latent fracture emerges within the political order-one that may appear harmless on the surface, yet gradually erodes the foundations of social trust. Accordingly, the most dangerous condition for a legal system is not overt lawlessness, but the persistence of a law that has been emptied of meaning. Such a law may produce order, but it cannot generate meaning; it may continue to exercise control, but it fails to persuade. The result is a society that is orderly, yet distrustful.