Personal justice is what it sounds like. It's what we as individuals hold dear, namely our value systems. Our views of immorality and legality often overlap with our idea of justice but definitely not always. We feel an injustice has been committed when what we value has been offended. The idea of justice is one of finality. It's an "In the end" concept. The final decisions of court trials are what we consider justice, although we do see things that are "wrong" at times with the defense and prosecution along the way such as when a defense attorney accuses a father of sexually abusing his daughter (like in the Casey Anthony case.) We think: "That's wrong. That clearly didn't happen and it's wrong for the defense attorney to have used it as a defense." Court room tactics often annoy our sense of right and wrong. In such moments, we feel that an injustice has been done, though we usually don't use the term "injustice" for smaller things because we view justice with such heavy finality. The idea of justice has weight. It's serious and usually non-subjective. Morality can often be seen subjectively. What is moral for one isn't moral for another. Not so with justice. No one thinks: "The murderer got off without any punishment. In my value system, that's a good thing." Such thoughts are considered detestable by the vast majority of people as are the ones that think it. This is the main difference in what is considered moral and what is considered just. Though the two do often overlap, many traits of morality are subjective (such as certain hedonistic pleasures) while those of justice are usually not. Orthodox religious views are ones that tend to link their ideas of morality with justice. What their bible or prophets say is considered one and the same. It's like the fusion of church and state. To many religious people, church doctrine is all there is. To me, the two are not synonymous. Justice isn't blind. It's usually crystal clear. The term "No justice, no peace" is a very fitting one for society. We're often able to forgive ourselves for certain small "immoralities" and we're much more likely to forgive certain small immoralities committed against us but we will not let go when our sense of justice has been offended. We can forgive the tactics of a defense attorney but we cannot forgive a final unjust verdict because the verdict has that sense of finality. If a killer gets away with it, that's all there is to it. Can't be tried for the same crime twice so justice not only hasn't been done, in all likelihood it will NEVER be done. In such cases, we question ourselves and our system. Certain illegalities can be overlooked (like jaywalking) so long as we get the big things (justice) right. If we don't, we're driven to overhaul certain parts of our legal system. We do that occasionally with matters of immorality that disgust us (like child molestation) but we usually don't see this as being a justice situation. We don't think: "The child molester has been caught. Justice has been done." We think: "The child molester has been caught. The evil person won't hurt children anymore." This is splitting hairs a bit but you get the idea. In matters of murder, the idea is to punish the killer. That is justice. In matters of child molestation, the most important thing is incarcerating the perpetrator so he doesn't do it again. Separation via incarceration is considered the just verdict. Laws are constantly being adapted when it comes to protecting children (as they should be.) In these cases, justice and legality can be considered synonymous, though it's more a case of immorality and legality being synonymous. As a society, we don't execute child molesters. We just lock them up for good. That's immorality fueling legality. Justice is involved though we don't usually see it that way. In cases like child molestation, we usually leave it up to our views of social justice, such as child molesters being beaten or even killed by prisoners in jail. Obviously, this isn't legal justice. It's a sense of social justice overlapping with punishing immorality. The prisoners will accomplish what the legal system might not, namely a possible execution. That is a matter of the enormous concept of social justice, which I'll comment on in my third post on justice.
Well, these are some opinions of how justice, legality and immorality can intersect or be separate depending on how we, as human beings, see individual situations. It's based on perceptions, fueled by what we hold dear, of what we see as the correct way to handle things. How we see the situations is how we make decisions we consider just.
