Courts and Social Justice

Many scholars have argued that courts are either harmful or useless when it comes to improving social justice in society. There are three main reasons offered in support of this argument: (1) Courts are elitist institutions that support the high social class of the judges at the expense of the rest of society, (2) the structure of litigation is geared towards harming the rights of people with modest economic means, (3) even when courts try to impose a higher standard of social justice, they are not able to initiate real social change. The purpose of this paper is to investigate these claims. The conclusion the paper reaches is that courts are able to initiate social change in favor of powerless social groups, primarily diffuse interests that are usually taken advantage of even in a functioning democracy.

The reason has to do with social processes that take place after judgments are issued instead of with the ideology of judges.