Sévane Garibian. All rights reserved.
“All justice, in its principle and in its execution, belongs solely to the State”. These words, written by Charles De Gaulle in a letter to Jean-Paul Sartre on 19 April 1967, explained his opposition to the first session of the Russell Tribunal (a newly created tribunal of opinion) being held in Paris. This opposition was grounded on one of the foundations of the modern state: the radical distinction between societal justice and state justice.
With the end of feudalism, retributive justice became exclusive to the sovereignty of the modern state: the right to punish, the central expression of state sovereignty in all its power, turned into a solemn and public ritual of repression and became hegemonic in judicial practice. Modernity was associated with criminal retribution that had come to take over societal justice. The latter, associated with private revenge, was therefore considered illegitimate: in other words, the exclusive state right to punish replaced private vengeance by restraining it.
