The Role of a Judge - Aquinas

The true judge avoids sentimentality, personal preference, and opinion, and is unafraid of carrying out both the unpopular and popular purposes of the law. The responsible judge is the equalizer, the bearer of proportionality, and the restorer of equilibrium. Judging is lawful only when consistent with the ends of justice itself, and to be proper its root power rests in the "sovereign as a master-virtue, commanding and prescribing what is just."

Judges, when delivering judicial sentences such as death, imprisonment, or restitution, sin not against the person upon whom it is imposed, nor is its imposition, if varied according to circumstance, a sin against the respect of person. Punishment responds to the sin itself. To the misfortune of the incarcerated or charged party, judges should focus on not only the individual dilemma but the need for a restoration of personal or communal equality. A judge's judgment is just if it is restorative to the individual harmed or beneficial to the common good." Then, too, a judge may determine, according to the distributive philosophy of justice . . . that certain cases or situations are to be decided differently relative to circumstance, parties, or other mitigating factors. In this circumstance, Thomas urges jurists to weigh and evaluate cases on more than the pertinent statute or code, on more than the written language of the law, in order to avoid becoming wholly dependent on punishment as the sole basis for the judicial process. St. Thomas issues sound advice. "As stated above, judgment is an act of justice, in as much as the judge restores to the equality of justice, those things which may cause an opposite inequality. Now respect of persons involves a certain inequality, in so far as something is allotted to a person out of that proportion to him in which the equality of justice consists."

This inequality entails neither an intentional injustice or harm, nor the wilful disregard for what is in equilibrium, but is a reflection of life's varying stations and degrees. For those empowered by money, political power, or social class, the quality of justice may differ from those less fortunate.
p. 129-30