Definition
A Latin adjective meaning unjust or unlawful. In legal contexts, *injustus* appears primarily as a term of civil law and maxim literature, characterizing an act, condition, or legal outcome as contrary to justice or right. It functions less as a stand-alone operative term and more as a modifier embedded in legal maxims and civilian treatises, where it signals that a procedure, judgment, or interpretation violates foundational principles of fairness or legality.
The term is most commonly encountered in the maxim: *Injustum est, nisi tota lege inspecta, de una aliqua ejus particula proposita judicare vel respondere* — It is wrong (unjust) to decide or give an answer upon any part of a law without examining the whole of it. This maxim carries genuine doctrinal weight: it encodes a rule of statutory and legal interpretation requiring that no provision be read in isolation from the law as a whole.
---
Common Confusion
*Injustus* should not be confused with *injuria*, which refers specifically to a legal wrong or injury — a violation of a recognized right. *Injustus* describes the character of an act or judgment (unjust, unlawful), while *injuria* identifies a cognizable legal harm. The distinction matters when reading civil law sources: an act may be *injustus* without constituting an *injuria* in the technical sense, and vice versa.
---
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter *injustus* almost exclusively in two contexts: Latin maxims reproduced in common law treatises and English reports, and translations of civil law texts. The practical importance of the term in Anglo-American legal research is largely indirect — it appears as a component of maxims that courts and commentators have cited to support principles of holistic statutory interpretation.
The maxim *Injustum est, nisi tota lege inspecta...* is the most frequently cited vehicle for the term in English legal literature. Burrill traces it to *Bonham's Case*, 8 Co. 117b, a foundational case in English constitutional and statutory interpretation. Researchers working in early modern English legal materials — particularly those touching on statutory construction or the authority of Parliament — will find this maxim appearing in contexts far weightier than the modest Latin adjective at its root would suggest.
A navigational caution: because *injustus* is an adjective rather than a term of art with defined legal elements, historical dictionaries and indices may not list it as a primary entry. Researchers searching for the maxim itself may need to search under the maxim's opening words or under *lex* (law) and statutory construction rather than under *injustus* directly. The term also surfaces in ecclesiastical law and Roman law commentary, where it describes void or defective legal acts.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the core entry, defining *injustus* simply as "unjust; wrong" and anchoring the definition to the *tota lege* maxim. Burrill's treatment is representative of how nineteenth-century Anglo-American legal dictionaries handled Latin adjectives: brief definition, followed by the maxim that gives the term its practical legal life.
The *tota lege* maxim itself — cited by Burrill to *Bonham's Case* — is the more researched object in legal history than the adjective. Coke's use of the maxim in *Bonham's Case* has attracted substantial scholarly attention as part of the broader question of whether early common law recognized a judicial power to void Acts of Parliament. For dictionary purposes, the point is that *injustus* in this maxim carries a normative force that translates into an interpretive obligation: a reading that ignores context is not merely incomplete but wrong.
Historical sources are largely silent on *injustus* apart from its role in maxims. Researchers should not expect substantive doctrinal development around the adjective itself in the English common law tradition. Civil law dictionaries — particularly those in the civilian tradition — will yield more, especially regarding the Roman law meaning of acts done without legal warrant.
---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: Statutory Interpretation; Legal Maxims; Injuria
---