Justice as Restoration of Balance

Sor Juana's understanding of justice emerged from her theological training but was refined by her personal experience of injustice—exclusions based on gender, colonial subordination, institutional power wielded without accountability. Justice, in this framework, means restoring balance: returning what was taken, acknowledging harm, creating conditions where the wronged are respected and the wrongdoer is called to account. In anti-corruption contexts, this expansive view of justice moves beyond punishment of individual wrongdoers to systemic repair. It asks: what was stolen or damaged? What must be returned or restored? How are relationships and trust rebuilt? This perspective resists both pure vengeance (which perpetuates cycles of harm) and pure forgiveness-without-accountability (which protects wrongdoers). Instead, following Sor Juana's model, anti-corruption justice includes investigation, documentation, acknowledgment of harm, restoration where possible, institutional change to prevent recurrence, and forms of accountability that allow moral reckoning and potential reconciliation.