If the laws are just then judicial decisions made on the basis of these laws must be just as well. This could be understood through analogy with deductive reasoning. The truth is transmitted from the premises into the conclusion. Thus, justice too should represent a semantic characteristic, or at least a partial semantic characteristic. If the legal procedure represented a kind of mechanical procedure, then it could be admitted that justice is automatically transmitted from the law into judicial decisions, but, unfortunately, this is not the case.
Laws are somewhat vague and, as such, demand interpretation .
In all probability, Socrates erred in not making a distinction between justice of laws and justice of judicial proceedings . The justice which refers to laws can be named substantial justice, while the justice of judicial proceedings can be labeled as procedural justice. Even if the effective laws are absolutely just, the court procedure can produce injustice if the laws are applied incorrectly. The general idea of procedural justice and Hart's interpretation of it draw upon the important observation that injustice can be done not only by following the law but also by applying it unfairly. This is what Socrates tried to prove in his trial.