Justice Tarot Card Meaning

Justice upright

Justice asks you to answer for your actions. You may be at a moment of decision, whose consequences will be weighed afterward. What is happening to you comes from past situations and decisions. The decision is not necessarily the one you would prefer.

You may be concluding agreements in which you balance your needs and desires with those of others: contracts, marriage, partnerships, negotiations, exchanges or settlements. You may also be concerned with a lawsuit, an inquiry or a mediation, as the person asking for justice or the one helping to render a judgment. In legal matters, the card goes to the side of the party who deserves it. It speaks of fairness, rectitude and integrity. It also speaks of lawsuits, rehabilitation, honesty and justice done, and it counts as a strong card. On the money side, it touches your accounts, your bills, your loans, your taxes and your business affairs. In a relationship, it touches a fair division of responsibilities, or the wish to give the relationship a legal framework.

The card asks you to see the truth about your situation and about yourself. It asks for complete honesty with yourself, which then extends to how you treat others. What you do in the future can change thanks to what you understand about your present situation. At bottom, it is about being true to your own nature: without that, none of your agreements with others will be truly fair.

This card comes in the middle of the series of the major cards. It balances inside and outside, past and future, reason and intuition, knowledge and experience. It asks you to unite understanding and action: understanding is useless without an active response. On the card, the double-edged sword means choice. You have to decide, and a decision once made can't be taken back: it becomes a part of you. Your past actions have shaped you, and your present actions shape who you will be.

Accepting this responsibility frees you from the past: as long as you don't see how you built yourself, you repeat the same behavior. This responsibility gives you no control over the outside world, and it carries no moral judgment. It means that everything you live through helps shape your personality. Before you can move forward, you have to admit that you made yourself what you are.

Acting rightly takes two things: measuring the facts correctly, then acting in line with them. Without exact measures, without correct criteria, you fail: most difficulties come from there. Your action must target what restricts your freedom. Practical skill lets you adjust what you live through. The card also shows that the foundation of successful action is accepting things as they are.

It also marks the moment when you weigh before you decide: the scales represent the balance of the forces at play, the sword the decision that follows. You move out of reaction and into decision. You act according to an inner measure that goes beyond your impulse of the moment, and that is how your freedom becomes real. The card regulates, it doesn't punish.

This card speaks of law, order and organization. Every action, every feeling and every desire weighs in the balance and produces equivalent effects. What comes from generous kindness enriches the soul. It also indicates that nature stays exact: every action brings a reaction, and all energy must be used with integrity.

Your strengths

You know how to weigh the pros and cons, analyze and evaluate.

What holds you back

Your voice can turn critical and demand discipline, logic, justification and exactness.

What helps

Look at the truth of your situation, hiding nothing from yourself, and accept it. Recognize that your past actions have made you who you are, and act on what you have understood. Weigh before you decide: make lists, compare pros and cons, estimate what has value for you. Adjust your decision according to your deep feelings and respect your personal truth, while staying fair and upright. Measure the facts exactly before acting. Look at the neighboring cards, which often show what you are trying to balance or between what you must choose. Alternate effort and rest: prepare for an effort with rest, and for mental expenditure with sleep or quiet reflection. Artificially stimulating yourself creates an imbalance that ends up settling in.

Justice reversed

Reversed, Justice often gives the feeling that something is not fair. You may fear that order is disturbed, that justice is turned upside down or that your wishes are thwarted. There may be one or more imbalances to correct in your life and relationships; the cards on either side show where.

You may dread having to answer for your actions or having to make something right. You may feel ashamed or humiliated, and have trouble facing the consequences. Sometimes you also recognize your mistakes and accept them with humility. What was stable, balanced or regular can be disturbed. Your old values, your usual bearings and society's expectations are no longer reliable: you have to react in the moment, with very few footholds. You may push the limits of what society and convention tolerate.

Injustice is at stake: bias, prejudice, intolerance. Criticism can become too harsh, and therefore destructive, or lack understanding. You may lean too heavily on reason and facts, or on the contrary ignore them for lack of discernment. Seen from the inside, the card speaks of the justice you have to find within yourself, which is sometimes the hardest task.

You may also feel buried in paperwork or blocked in your writing.

What holds you back

You react from emotion when calm reason is needed.
You try to justify what you did.
You stay caught in indecision and do not act.
You feel treated unfairly and use that as an excuse not to take your share of responsibility for what happens to you.
You are too harsh or lack discernment in your judgment.

What helps

Spotting the imbalances in your life and relationships, and correcting them.
Acknowledging your mistakes with humility.
Looking inward to find your own justice and your own resolution.
Taking charge of your share of responsibility: nobody but you can get you out of it.

Careers

lawyer, legal professions, police.

What the card shows

She holds scales in one hand and a raised sword in the other. The figure is the Greek goddess Themis, called Justitia in Rome. She is also linked to Astraea, the Virgo of the zodiac who holds the scales of the autumn equinox. On courthouse frescoes, Justitia is blindfolded to show that the law applies in the same way to the weak and the powerful. On the card she has no blindfold: she looks straight ahead, because the justice meant here asks you to see the truth about yourself and about life.

The scales

They represent the balance of the forces at play.

They are for weighing before deciding. They also point to accounts, debts, taxes, contracts and agreements between people.

The sword

It points straight up: it expresses resolve and a clear mind that reaches the meaning of events. It has two edges, which means choice: every decision you make becomes part of you and cannot be taken back. It marks the decision that follows the weighing. Together with the scales, it says you need to measure the facts correctly, then act in line with them, setting aside whatever limits your freedom.

The seat, the columns and the posture

The throne is massive, fixed to the ground, stable.

Justice treats each person according to their deeds. The woman looks both androgynous and ready to stand up: one foot shows from under the robe, the other stays hidden. Her posture joins understanding and action.

The colors and other details

The veil is purple, the color of inner wisdom. The background, the crown, the hair and the pans of the scales are yellow, the color of mental strength. Her robe is red, and her posture, one arm raised and one lowered, recalls the Magician. A T-shaped cross decorates her robe. The crown and the blond hair link her to the Empress.

The number 11

Eleven is a double 1: the Magician, who acts, is developed and doubled by the High Priestess, who records and keeps in memory, and the result is balance. The two digits of 11 add up to 2, and 11 is also a higher version of 1. The card therefore joins the Magician and the High Priestess: right action comes from self-knowledge, and wisdom comes from action. Justice sits at the exact center of the major cards. She follows the Wheel of Fortune: the Wheel shows the general law of cycles, and Justice applies it through the person's actions. After the Wheel's overview of your life, Justice gives the understanding of that overview.

What the card means

The card speaks of responsibility: everything you do and live through helps shape your personality, and you keep creating yourself through your future actions. It asks for honesty with yourself, then with others, fairness, correct actions and, in legal matters, a fair decision, not necessarily the one you would prefer. It shows that what you are living comes from past situations and decisions. It also signals that you can change your future actions through what you learn from the present situation. Accepting responsibility for it frees you from the past: you only detach from it by becoming aware of it, otherwise you repeat the same behavior. Responsibility does not mean you control the outside world: it has no moral sense, it simply notes that every experience shapes you. It asks you to be true to your own nature, without which no agreement with others will be truly fair. It can announce a moment of decision, an agreement to reach (contract, marriage, partnership, negotiation, settlement), a legal matter or a mediation. It is also the voice of criticism, which demands discipline, logic, reasons and accuracy. In the order of the cards, Justice checks the balance after the mastery of the Chariot: she weighs, measures and judges, and you stop inwardly to evaluate. She is an act of awareness: inner evaluation takes you out of reaction and into decision, and that is how freedom becomes real. She is not punitive: she settles and puts things in order. She coordinates what would otherwise remain without order, because living beings live by laws. In a person, a phase of excitement has to be balanced by rest. Among the classic meanings of the card: fairness, uprightness, integrity, the triumph of the party in the right in court. A reversed card speaks of injustice, legal complications, bias and excessive severity.

Regularity, method, accuracy, thoroughness and discipline. You can weigh the pros and cons, analyze, assess your values and make decisions you can live with. You know how to adjust your actions to what you feel without ceasing to be fair.

What holds you back

You tell yourself that everything is unfair and that others treat you badly, which excuses you from seeing your share of responsibility.
You can be dishonest with yourself and with others, and refuse to see the meaning of what happens to you.
You fear having to answer for your actions and make amends, and you may feel ashamed or find it hard to face the consequences.
You may justify yourself or sink into indecision.
Your criticism can be too harsh, and so destructive or lacking in understanding.
You may lean too heavily on reason and facts, or ignore them for lack of discernment.
You may react with emotion when calm reason is called for.
You may fall into routine, fear of the new and lack of initiative.

What helps

Face the truth about your life and yourself, then act on that understanding.
Accept that your past choices have shaped you, so you can free yourself from them.
Weigh before you cut, then decide.
Make lists, assess the values at stake, and honor your personal truth while staying fair.
Measure the facts accurately and act in line with them.
Alternate effort and rest: prepare for effort through rest.
Give and act with kindness: generous energy enriches the soul.