Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus
The Latin sentence Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus is usually translated. Justice should be done and the world perish over it (or analogously).
The sentence can also be quoted ironically in the sense of criticizing a legal conception and legal practice that is willing to enforce the preservation of legal principles at all costs - also to the detriment of society (contrary to the epic ).
Origin and impact history
The first testimony is given to Pope Hadrian VI. (1459–1523) borrowed. According to the diary entries of the Venetian historian and writer Marino Sanudo, immediately after assuming the papal office, he replied to the request for mercy for one of the patrician family accused of murder : “absolutiones ab homicidio non dantur nisi magna ex causa, et nisi auditis qui se laesos praetendunt, et ideo volumus audire utramque partem, quia animus noster est ut fiat justitia et pereat mundus. ”(Eng." acquittals of murder are granted only if the reason is significant, and only if those who claim that have been heard To have harm, and therefore we want to listen to both sides, since our attitude is that justice should be done, may the world come to an end. ")
The sentence also has meaning as the motto of Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564). It transmits and characterizes an attitude that wants to obtain justice at any price. Even today, the sentence is mostly understood in this sense, i. H. as a maxim that accepts the end of the world itself for the sake of justice . A similar saying in this regard is Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum (“Justice should be done and when the sky collapses”).
King Friedrich Wilhelm I in Prussia (1688–1740) wrote when he converted the milder sentence in the Katte trial into a death sentence: he had "also gone through school and (have) learned the saying: Fiat iustitia aut pereat mundus ." This reverses the word: if justice is not done, the world will end.
Heinrich von Kleist took up the motif in 1808 in the novella Michael Kohlhaas .
More translations and variations
Martin Luther translated in a sermon on May 10, 1535: What is right happens and the world should perish.
Immanuel Kant transferred: There is justice, the rogues in the world may perish as a whole .
Detlef Liebs interprets: The judiciary takes its course and the arrogance goes under.
See also
Web links
literature
- Detlef Liebs: "The legal proverb Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus". In: Juristenteitung 2015, pp. 138–141.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Otfried Höffe : Justice. A philosophical introduction (= Beck'sche Reihe 2168 CH Beck Wissen. ). 3rd, revised edition. Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-44768-6 , p. 54.
- ↑ "I Diarii di Marino Sanuto", edited by Fulin, Stefani, Barozzi, Berchet, Allegri. 56 volumes. Venice 1879–1902.
- ↑ Sanudo, Diarii, Vol. 33, Venice 1892, Col. 434-438.
- ^ Büchmann, Winged Words, 35th edition, Frankfurt (Main) u. a. 1981: Ullstein, p. 347
- ^ Letter from the king to the court martial in Koepenick, Berlin, November 1, 1730, printed in: Jürgen Kloosterhuis : Katte. Order and Articles of War. File-analysis and military-historical aspects of a “technical” story. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-428-12193-7 , p. 88.
- ↑ Immanuel Kant: Academy edition of the works of Immanuel Kant AA VIII, For Eternal Peace . P. 378.
- ↑ Detlef Liebs: "The legal proverb Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus". In: Juristenteitung 2015, pp. 138–141.