Procedural Justice and the Private Justice Gap

This chapter examines how procedural justice underpins legitimate adjudication, tracing safeguards from the Nuremberg trials to modern instruments such as the ICCPR and the ECHR. It confronts systemic barriers to access to justice and explores lay and participatory models (juries, ADR, ODR, platform governance), weighing inclusivity against risks of bias and due process deficits. It then distinguishes these experiences from private justice: justice administered by any persons or entities in a private capacity, without institutional authority to do so in each case or situation. Certain instantiations of private justice have not only been tolerated but, in some cases, integrated into legal systems. These permitted forms of action (e.g., self-help, self-defence, direct action, resistance) integrate a ‘Private Justice Gap’ that is characterised as dynamic and adjustable to its social context, leaving room for assessing private justice amid digital-era transformations.