Fiat justitia ruat caelum

Fiat justitia ruat caelum is a Latin legal phrase, meaning "Let justice be done though the heavens fall." The maxim signifies the belief that justice must be realized regardless of consequences. According to the 19th century abolitionist politician Charles Sumner, it does not come from any classical source. However, it has also been ascribed to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (d. 43 B.C.), which may be a confusion; see "Piso's justice".

Classical forms

The ancient metaphor of the falling sky

The falling sky clause occurs in the passage of Terence, suggesting that it was a common saying in his time, “Quid si redeo ad illos qui aiunt, ‘Quid si nunc cœlum ruat?’” — “What if I have recourse to those who say, ‘What now if the sky were to fall?’”. Similarly, the fable "The Sky Is Falling" is among Aesop's Fables.

This concern recalls a passage in Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander, Book I, 4, where ambassadors of the Celtae from the Adriatic sea, tall men of haughty demeanor, upon being asked by Alexander what in the world they feared most, answered that their worst fear was that the sky might fall on their heads. Alexander, who hoped to hear himself named, was disappointed by an answer that implied that nothing within human power could hurt them, short of a total destruction of nature.

In a similar vein, Theognis of Megara urges “May the great broad sky of bronze fall on my head / (That fear of earth-born men) if I am not / A friend to those who love me, and a pain / And irritation to my enemies.” Whereas Aristotle asserts in his Physics, B. IV, that it was the early notion of ignorant nations that the sky was supported on the shoulders of Atlas, and that when he let go of it, it would fall.

On the other hand, Horace opens one of his odes with a depiction of a Stoic hero who will submit to the ruin of the universe around him: "Si fractus illabatur orbis, / impavidum ferient ruinae" — "Should the whole frame of Nature round him break, / In ruin and confusion hurled, / He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, / And stand secure amidst a falling world." (Odes 3.3.7-8, translated by Joseph Addison.)

Seneca: "Piso's justice"

In De Ira (On Anger), Book I, Chapter XVIII, Seneca tells of Gnaeus Piso, a Roman governor and lawmaker, when he was angry, ordering the execution of a soldier who had returned from a leave of absence without his comrade, on the ground that if the man did not produce his companion, he had presumably killed the latter. As the condemned man was presenting his neck to the executioner's sword, there suddenly appeared the very comrade who was supposedly murdered. The centurion overseeing the execution halted the proceedings and led the condemned man back to Piso, expecting a reprieve. But Piso mounted the tribunal in a rage, and ordered the three soldiers to be executed. He ordered the death of the man who was to have been executed, because the sentence had already been passed; he also ordered the death of the centurion who was in charge of the original execution, for failing to perform his duty; and finally, he ordered the death of the man who had been supposed to have been murdered, because he had been the cause of death of two innocent men.

In subsequent versions of this legend, this principle became known as “Piso’s justice”, a term that characterize sentences that are carried out or passed of retaliation -- whose intentions are technically correct, but morally wrong -- and this could be construed as a negative interpretation of the meaning of Fiat justitia ruat caelum.

However, no form of the phrase fiat justitia appears in De Ira, though Brewer's incorrectly states that it does. The phrase is sometimes attributed to a different Piso, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, possibly a confusion with this case.

Modern origins

The exact phrase as used for approval of justice at all cost – usually seen in a positive sense – appears to originate in modern jurisprudence. In English law, William Watson in “Ten Quodlibetical Quotations Concerning Religion and State” (1601) “You go against that general maxim in the laws, which is ‘Fiat justitia et ruant coeli.’” This is its first known appearance in English literature.

The maxim was used by William Prynne in “Fresh Discovery of Prodigious Wandering New-Blazing Stars” (1646), by Nathaniel Ward in “Simple Cobbler of Agawam” (1647), and frequently thereafter, but it was given its widest celebrity by William Murray, 1st Baron Mansfield's decision in 1770 on the case concerning the outlawry of John Wilkes (and not, as is commonly believed, in Somersett's Case, the 1772 case concerning the legality of slavery in England).

The maxim is given in various forms:

• “Fiat justitia et ruant coeli” (Watson);
• “Fiat justitia et coelum ruat” (John Manningham, Diary, 11 April 1603);
• “Fiat justitia, ruat coelum” (Lord Mansfield).

Famous modern uses

Crest of the family of Joseph Drew of Weymouth, Dorset, 1870

More recently, Judge James Edwin Horton referred to the maxim when he recalled his decision to overturn the conviction of Haywood Patterson in the infamous Scottsboro Boys trial. In 1933, Judge Horton set aside the death sentence of Haywood Patterson, one of nine black men who were wrongfully convicted of raping two white women in Alabama. Judge Horton quoted the phrase when explaining why he made his decision, even though he knew it would mean the end of his judicial career. Similarly, Lord Mansfield, in reversing the outlawry of John Wilkes in 1770, used the phrase to reflect upon the duty of the Court.

The phrase is engraved on the wall behind the bench in the Supreme Court of Georgia and over the lintel of the Bridewell Garda station in Dublin. The Tennessee Supreme Court uses the phrase as its motto; it appears in the seal of the Court and is inlaid into the floor of the lobby of the court's building in Nashville. During World War II, the 447th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force used the phrase as its motto, which appeared on the group's official unit markings.

In the Oliver Stone 1991 film JFK, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) says the variation, "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall," in reference to his investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy. In the 2006 Vin Diesel comedy Find Me Guilty, the phrase is inscribed on the front of a federal judge's bench, and is translated by a defense attorney as part of his opening statement.

The seventh episode in series three of the BBC's television show Being Human is named "Though the Heavens Fall" in reference to the phrase "Fiat justitia, ruat caelum" and its relevance to the plot of the episode.

See also

• Fiat justitia
• Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus, a similar phrase
• The Sky Is Falling (fable)