the law is blind

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the principle that justice should be administered impartially, without regard to the identity, status, appearance, or social connections of the parties before the court — symbolised by the blindfold worn by the allegorical figure of Justice; the blindfold of Justice, holding her scales and sword, represents the aspiration that legal outcomes should be determined by facts and law alone, not by who the parties are or how they present themselves; in practice the ideal of blind justice is never perfectly achieved, and critics note that the law's blindness to social context can itself be unjust — applying the same formal rules to people in radically unequal positions can reproduce rather than remedy inequality; the phrase is used both reverently, as an aspiration for impartial governance, and ironically, to note the gap between formal legal equality and actual social outcomes