Bernd Rüthers deals with the human longing for justice. The expectations placed on just rules and decisions in society and the government are characterized by a variety of illusions linked to different interests in free societies. In liberal constitutional states, this results in a competition among various types of justice. The author demonstrates the uncertainty and the changeableness of the concept of justice and the "idea of the law" throughout the systems and cultures. The criteria for justice prove to be blurred guidelines to new problems of human coexistence. The state does not have a monopoly on the truth or correctness of the definition of the "just." In laws and decisions made in the last instance, it only renders the "justice of the system" from its perspective in each individual case.