Retribution or Rectitude? Procedural Justice in the Ancient World

Modern natural law posits that justice not only relies on outcomes, but also on the fairness of the process itself, a concept known as procedural justice. In this paper I examine whether legal systems in the ancient world which were frequently characterized by retribution (‘an eye for an eye’), could ensure procedural justice. Using Tom R. Tyler’s four core pillars of procedural justice; Voice, Neutrality, Trustworthiness, and Respect, this paper conducts a comparative examination of four distinct legal archetypes: the participatory democracy of Athens (c. 508 -322 BCE), the religious-hierarchical Dharma system of India (c. 300 - 500 CE), the codified sovereignty of Babylon’s Code of Hammurabi (c. 1792 - 1750 BCE), and the moral-bureaucratic divine justice of Egypt during the New Kingdom period (c.1550 - 1069 BCE). The analysis reveals that while these civilizations established foundational legal structures, they fell short when measured against the standards of procedural justice in the modern world. Specifically, their reliance on social stratification and emotional retribution compromised one of the core pillars, Neutrality. This resulted in systems where the restoration of order in those territories systematically took precedence over the rights of individuals with respect to procedural justice.