Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fiat justitia


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   no consensus. -- Cirt (talk) 00:09, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Fiat justitia

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Rather poor claim to notability: this phrase is painted at the bottom of a judge's portrait, and it's the motto of a couple of organisations. No significant coverage. Most of the Google Books results seem to be using the phrase as an epigraph rather than discussing it directly ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  ballotbox  ─╢ 21:05, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment this specific phrase has a technical legal meaning: I've added a reference. Sergeant Cribb (talk) 21:32, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sure it does have a meaning, though my Latin knowledge was far too rudimentary to determine it ;) However, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and if the only point about this phrase that can be cited is that it has a meaning, then it probably doesn't meet the SIGCOV criterion... ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  Regional Counting Officer  ─╢ 21:33, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not (yet) commenting on the notability but of course the phrase has a meaning. However my point was that in the legal context the phrase is jussive and its pronouncement expresses or encodes a specific action, similar to La reine s'avisera.  Sergeant Cribb (talk) 21:42, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The prase I was looking for was performative utterance. Sergeant Cribb (talk) 17:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep There are numerous references to this in the context of a writ of error. It may also be an abbreviated form of fiat justitia ruat caelum.  We should assist readers in search of these relevant topics and so deletion would be disruptive. Warden (talk) 00:47, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm still genuinely struggling to find coverage of this topic. Are you able to identify any? ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  prorogation  ─╢ 08:33, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions.  — Logan Talk Contributions 00:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Merge/redirect to List of Latin phrases (F). Neutralitytalk 04:10, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep I've expanded the entry after recourse to a further source (as a rule of thumb an entry in the encyclopedic Oxford Companion to Law is likely to be a sure sign of notability). It relates to an important topic which Wikipedia now covers wholly inadequately, that is the development of the means by which official mistakes or actions could be challenged in the courts. Writ of error now leads to Appeal where it does not seem to be mentioned, but it is historically a very notable legal device. I'd be happy to see fiat justitia merged if there were an article which dealt with the appeal mechanism in its historical context, but I don't see one. --AJHingston (talk) 15:06, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Merge into Fiat justitia ruat caelum. This phrase is an abbreviation of that one and I do not see the need to dilute content over two articles. Reyk  YO!  22:44, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't an abbreviation. The words stand on their own and had a specific legal significance and purpose. The fact that they appear in other phrases is irrelevant (most words do). --AJHingston (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. The RAFPD usage alone justifies this having its own article.  James470 (talk) 05:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So WP:INHERITED then? ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  Lord Speaker  ─╢ 07:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's actually a very notable "performative utterance" with a far more venerable history than has been touched on so far in the discussion here or in the article in its current form (meaning no criticism to any contributors to date). After the Magna Carta, the King responded to petitions of right (and sometimes to those of grace and favor) with "Fiat justitia." The Vetus Codex (a/k/a, The Black Book of the Tower), a transcription of 14th century petitions to Edward I, many answered thus, appears to have been consulted by members of the Long Parliament and may well have influenced the Commons' drafting of the Petition of Right to Charles I, who responded to the Bill of Attainder against his minister, Strafford, by begging the House of Lords to help him convince the Commons to impose a sentence of life imprisonment rather than to execute Strafford, but conceded, "If, however, nothing less than his life can satisfy my people, then must I say, Fiat justitia!", a rather famous event in English Constitutional history. The Charles Sumner address that's cited in the Fiat justitia ruat caelum article itself cites some of the distinct history of Fiat justitia, but Sumner lacked the legal histories of Pollard and Maitland that were published later in the 19th century and the early 20th century, as well as access to The Egerton Papers. With respect to Fiat justitia as the historical response to a Writ of Error, Pollard explained in The Evolution of Parliament that the greatest hardships experienced by parties before the medieval English courts were far less often the errors courts might commit than their interminable delays in resolving cases, a violation of one of the most significant rights confirmed by the Magna Carta. Parties who found themselves in such straights could and often did petition medieval Parliaments to move such cases forward by issuing the order, Fiat justitia durante parliamento ("Let there be justice during Parliament"). There are quite a lot of sources available on this -- including some available in Google Books -- but a well done article will require a fair amount of work and a reasonable amount of familiarity with the subject. In any case, FWIW, I could not agree with AJHingston and the others urging this to be kept any more emphatically.Ravinpa (talk) 00:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.