Justice

Quick answer

The core meaning of Justice is The objective balance of cause and effect. Upright, it usually points to Justice, truth, cause and effect, the law. Symbolizes objective assessment and f; reversed, it may suggest Injustice, bias, avoiding accountability, legal disputes. May indicate being tre.

Card imagery

A stern woman sits between two stone pillars before a purple veil. Her right hand raises a sword (reason) while her left holds a set of scales (balance). One exposed foot symbolizes action.

Upright meaning

Justice, truth, cause and effect, the law. Symbolizes objective assessment and fact-based decisions, underscoring the law of karma: you reap what you sow.

Reversed meaning

Injustice, bias, avoiding accountability, legal disputes. May indicate being treated unfairly, or deceiving yourself and refusing to face the truth.

Love, Career, Money and Growth

Love

In love, Justice points to The objective balance of cause and effect. Read it back against how the relationship actually behaves and what you are both choosing.

Career

In career matters, Justice points to The objective balance of cause and effect. Start by working out which resources you control and what your next move is.

Money

In money matters, Justice points to The objective balance of cause and effect. Do not treat a symbolic reading as an investment conclusion — go by facts, budget and your own risk tolerance.

Personal growth

For personal growth, Justice points to The objective balance of cause and effect. Write down the question it raises, then turn that into an action you can actually check.

Yes or No

Upright

Undecided

Reversed

No

This is our own quick read, based on which way the card’s meaning leans. Traditions disagree about individual cards, and an "Undecided" needs to be weighed against the position in the spread and your actual situation rather than taken as a one-word answer.

Waite’s Original Text (1911)

Inner Symbolism (original)

As this card follows the traditional symbolism and carries above all its obvious meanings, there is little to say regarding it outside the few considerations collected in the first part, to which the reader is referred.

It will be seen, however, that the figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess, and on this account it seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works—while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things—differs in its essence from the spiritual justice which is involved in the idea of election. The latter belongs to a mysterious order of Providence, in virtue of which it is possible for certain men to conceive the idea of dedication to the highest things. The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills, and we have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it. It is analogous to the possession of the fairy gifts and the high gifts and the gracious gifts of the poet: we have them or have not, and their presence is as much a mystery as their absence. The law of Justice is not, however, involved by either alternative. In conclusion, the pillars of Justice open into one world and the pillars of the High Priestess into another.

Original Upright Meaning

Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law.

Original Reversed Meaning

Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.

Quoted from A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The text is in the public domain.