Law and justice in the context of the Zapatista Western

In this paper I analyze the concepts of law and justice, frequently used together, starting with their use in the names of political parties in Poland, Croatia and Serbia, and with Emiliano Zapata's famous words, "If there is no justice for the people, let there be no peace for the government." By "Zapatista Western" I refer to different, mostly superficial, appeals to justice. I examine the phenomenon of appeal to justice from two theoretical perspectives: Kelsen's critique of justice as an elusive pursuit of happiness that needs to be excluded from the domain of law, and Althusser's concept, which draws on Kelsen. Although I refrain from a definite conclusion, I favor Althusser's position. Althusser perceives law not as a neutral instrument of justice, but as a key element in an ideological reproduction of a society. Therefore, appeal to justice has to be related to class politics, rooted in and thought out in relation to structural layers and elements of society, and not taken moralistically, as a perception of a current aberration from the civilizational norm. Althusser contributed to the elevation of legal theory from formalism and positivism to a critical approach, so that law is no longer seen as abstract justice, but as an active element in the dynamics of social power relations.