Major Arcana · 11
Justice
La Justice (Tarot de Marseille, numbered VIII) · La Giustizia (Italian tarocchi) · Daughter of the Lords of Truth; Ruler of the Balance (Golden Dawn) · Adjustment (Thoth Tarot)
A crowned figure seated between two pillars, holding an upright sword and a pair of scales. In the Waite–Smith tradition Justice stands for fairness, truth and the consequences of one's actions.
Upright fairness · truth · law · accountability · cause and effect · balance · clear judgement
Reversed injustice · dishonesty · bias · avoided responsibility · imbalance · legal delays
- Astrology
- Libra
- Element
- Air
- Hebrew letter
- Lamed
- Number
- 11 (8 in the Tarot de Marseille and the Thoth Tarot)
- Golden Dawn title
- Daughter of the Lords of Truth; Ruler of the Balance
- Yes or no
- Maybe
Upright
Justice weighs things as they are. In the Waite–Smith tradition the card signifies fairness, honesty, accountability and decisions reached by clear reasoning. It speaks of cause and effect: what has been done comes back to be measured.
Love and relationships: honesty and reciprocity, a relationship in which both people give and receive fairly, or a decision about commitment made with open eyes. It can also mark the formal side of partnership, such as agreements and settlements.
Work and money: contracts, negotiations, legal and administrative matters, and judgement by others. Readers take the card as favourable when one's dealings have been straight, and as a reminder that accounts must balance.
Advice: look at the facts without flattering yourself or anyone else, take responsibility for your part, and act with integrity. The card's sword cuts through confusion; its scales ask for proportion and fairness to every side.
Reversed
Inverted, Justice tilts. Readers associate the position with unfairness, bias, dishonesty or a refusal to accept responsibility — one's own or someone else's. It may point to a decision that went the wrong way, or to legal and official matters that drag on.
In relationships it can describe an unequal partnership or blame placed unfairly. In work it may warn against cutting corners or signing what has not been read.
Readers who leave reversals out, as many do, would draw these warnings from difficult cards nearby instead.
The image
Smith's Justice sits facing forward on a stone throne between two grey pillars, with a purple curtain hung between them. She wears a red robe with a green cape, and a crown set with a small square jewel. In her right hand she holds a double-edged sword pointing straight up; in her left, a pair of golden scales hangs level. One white shoe peeps out from beneath her robe. The background beyond the curtain is yellow. Unlike many civic statues of Justice, she is not blindfolded and looks straight at the viewer.
History
Justice is one of the cardinal virtues and appears among the earliest Italian trumps. The Visconti-Sforza card shows a crowned woman with sword and scales and, above her, an armoured knight on a galloping horse. In the Tarot de Marseille La Justice is numbered eight and Strength eleven.
The Golden Dawn exchanged their positions so that Justice would fall on the Hebrew letter Lamed and the sign Libra, and Strength on Teth and Leo. Waite's deck adopted the change, which is why English-language readers usually know Justice as eleven. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) distinguishes the moral, worldly justice of the card from a higher spiritual justice that, he suggests, works by other laws. Aleister Crowley renamed it Adjustment in the Thoth deck and returned it to the number eight.
Symbolism
The scales stand for weighing evidence and for balance; the upright sword for decision, clarity and the enforcement of what is decided. The pillars and curtain repeat the setting of the High Priestess, suggesting that Justice also guards a threshold, but the purple veil signals compassion as well as law. The exposed white foot is sometimes read as readiness to act.
Libra, the sign of the scales, is ruled by Venus and associated with harmony and relationship, which reminds readers that justice in tarot is about restoring balance between people rather than punishment. Lamed means "ox-goad", the tool that drives toward right action. The path connects Geburah, severity, with Tiphareth, beauty, at the heart of the Tree of Life. Eleven, a "master number" in modern numerology, is often linked with ideals and conscience (see number eleven).
In a reading
Justice frequently appears in questions of contracts, disputes, choices and fairness. With the Judgement card it suggests a reckoning or final decision; with the Two of Swords, a stalemate that must be resolved; with the Ten of Wands, an overload that needs redistributing. Readers note that it favours whoever is in the right, so its outcome depends on the querent's own conduct.
Sources and further reading
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot — A. E. Waite, 1910
- The Golden Dawn — Israel Regardie, 1937
- The Book of Thoth — Aleister Crowley, 1944
- The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City — Michael Dummett, 1980