TAMIL NADU NATIONAL LAW SCHOOL

( A STATE UNIVERSITY ESTABLISHED BY ACT NO.9 OF 2012 )

Navalur Kuttapattu, Srirangam (TK), Tiruchirapalli 620009, Tamil Nadu

PAPER-IV

JURISPRUDENCE

Batman as a modern natural lawyer.

SUBMITTED TO:
Ms. Pranusha K.

By
S.Srisankar
II year B.Com.LL.B (Hons)
(Reg No.BCO150026)
Tamil Nadu National Law School
Tiruchirappalli
Email ID: srishankar63@gmail.com
 CONTENT

1. Abstract
2. What makes Batman different from the villains while acting
completely outside the jurisdiction of the legal system.
3. Differentiating Classical Natural law theory from the Modern
Natural law theory and why Batman is a Modern Natural
Lawyer.
4. Batman as a modernist.
5. Batmans ideology of Justice.
 BATMAN as a Natural Lawyer.

1.0 ABSTRACT:

This project will closely examine the characters of Batman and the reasons for relating Batman with
the modern natural law. Before moving on to the project in detail, I would like to highlight an
important fact the Bruce Waynes personal nightmares especially the night in which he had lost his
parents played a major role and many other such incidence shaped up his character and ideology of
keeping the structure of justice, judicial body and the legal system clean. This project in many way
argues why batman is a modern natural lawyer. In order to support the above mentioned statement
in simple words, he himself acts as an external force completely outside the positivistic legal system
to only portrait his vision of justice by resisting flaws and other corruptions in the legal system, not
only this he always uses physical force and violence whenever necessary especially while dealing
with the underworld. Hence I would like to put forth my reason with the reference to various
Batman comics, movies, spin offs related to the aforementioned topic.
2.0 What makes Batman different from the villains while acting completely outside the
jurisdiction of the legal system.

Firstly before examining the ideology and concept of Batmans view of Justice let us look into the
natural and the analytical view of law. Taking natural law in the first place when observe that the
Natural law theory in the original formulation believes in the existence of morality or rational
thinking. On the other hand the Analytical school believe in the very fact that law notwithstanding
to the fact of it being reasonable, just, or any sort of moral basis is valid. Now closely taking in the
above mentioned facts and closely relating it to Batman, we can say that Batman always acts
outside the jurisdiction of the legal system of Gotham (which can be considered as immoral) in
order to fight with the corruptions and the flaws of the legal system and in his city which is filled
with evil forces which cant be controlled by the legal system itself batman uses violence as a way of
protracting justice. We can take the instance in which The Gordon the city police commissioner
had agreed to allow Batman involve in a number of police or other activities in which Batman has
absolutely no jurisdiction. For instance in the movie Dark Knight returns, Harvey Dent and
Gordon completely accept Batman to act in their place ignorer to stop the Joker from causing any
harm to the people of the city. This is one of the instance in which Batman is in a way a true or
natural mean of justice acting completely out of the legal system in order to stop the crimes and the
other flaws. He acts as mean of divide between the legal system and the justice. Hence it can be
understood as Batman stands as a force of justice and morality in a way not only to prevent the flaw
of the legal system but also improve the legal system subjection to morality and rationalisation. In
the first place had the legal system been more efficient batman would have never come into
existence and also the fact that Bruce Waynes parents wouldn't have died. Bruce Wayne also
believe in idealising symbol of justice which is incorruptible and such symbol can have an
everlasting impact on the society which he did as Batman.

3.0 Differentiating Classical Natural law theory from the Modern Natural law theory and why
Batman is a Modern Natural Lawyer:

Taking in the classical natural law theory as stated by Dublin:

the law of nature was deduced from the nature of man as it reveals itself in the basic inclinations of
the nature under the control of reason. As human nature is identical in people everywhere, the
precepts of natural law are universal inspite of historical, geographical, cultural and other such
variations. According to him natural law is concerned with good society for which the state provides
law and order.
Batman in order to fit in the scope of the Classical Natural Law theory he must be at least a person
who in with the jurisdiction of the legal system. Hence it does not make sense to refer Batman as a
classical natural lawyer. The modern natural law theory states that both justice is both the process
and the outcome of any case which is related to nature. In other words in order to maintain the state
of nature legal remedies are provided and the fact that justice operates in a way or other to restore
the state of nature in case of breach. Hence taking all of this win consideration Batman is ultimately
the protector who ensures the security of the people. Not only this his never leaves his enemies or
the criminal to be let with out retribution, it is important to note that Batman limits his capacity in
punishing such people as his feels that he was not in the place to give them. For instance in the
movie Dark knight returns in the end in which Batman finally gets hold of joker he had chances
to kill him yet he didnt. Another instance in the first part of the Dark knight trilogy in which he
would tell Ras Al Ghul in the last that he wouldn't kill him and not the same time he wouldn't save
him. Hence it can be concluded that Batman is of the modern natural law connect rather than the
classic one, as if he needed to fit it he would have to give orders, commands or pass a law to the city
of Gotham.
Another instance with reference to the Movie Batman Begins in which Bruce Wayne is about to
be a member of the League of Shadows and he was asked to execute a farmer but how ever He
believed in the very concept of the criminal to be tried.

4.0 Batman as a modernist:

According the classical thought of natural law, the very basic view ideology that God was
considered as the source of nature. However this theory has evolved over a period of several years,
for instance in the medical period popular jurist like Aquinas stated that God is the ultimate source
of law and also the Nature and the purpose of humanity was determined within Gods plan for the
universe. Hence taking this school of thought, Batman cant be viewed as a source of justice as h
is not a deity or a true executor of the views of school of thought. The natural law theory has
constantly evolved with change in time.For instance at some out when the human population had
increased it lead to a lot of conflicts and due to such greed humanity was completely out of the act
of self interest as there was no law to regulate them. However at time had raised the a need for the
formation of the state in order to regulate the human affair. At this time the concept of the state of
nature was in existence as state in Thomas Hobbes theory. The evolution of the sovereignty had also
played a major role in the reasoning and the moral factors of the legal system, for instance as
Thomas Hobbes proposed the sovereign was the head of the state and no questions could be raised
against him. Over a period of time the concept of sovereign had changed and it led to a period of
reasoning or generally called the enlightenment period. It can also be noted that the concept of
justice slowly moved away from the traditional one, in which the people of the state had agreed to
be regulated by state.1 Batman was a mere mortal with all his training, mental capacity and wealth.
The very reason why he is a modernist is due to the fact that he rationalisation and immense logical
reasoning and deduction in order to achieve justice. For instance in the movie of Batman Begins:
when Ras Al Ghul finally offers Bruce Wayne a.k.a Batman to become the member of the League
of Shadows to which he had to assassinate a innocent farmer and also when he was aware of the
fact that The League of Shadows wanted to attack Gotham (as it was in one of the darkest period
of crime and efficient land broke legal system) by basically destroying law and order of the city.
Batman uses logical deduction and believed that Gotham would restore balance in a moral and more
ethical way rather than using mass destruction and in a way prevents the various human institutions
of Gotham from being destroyed and saving the city from an point where there is no state. Hence
Batman is a modernist and respond and counter the flaws of the legal system but however does not
break or destroy the system at the same time. Another instance is that he uses his fear which is bat is
order to symbolise his way of justice and also to scare criminals and the underworld. Hence to
certain extent he is a modernist.

Batman and justice

Batman action cleanses the human system, removing the bad apples that have twisted or
disregarded the system to their own ends. Batman, an external force, beyond the rules and limits of
law, beyond the confines of the civilised state, judges the system as broken, and swoops in to fix
that systemto make it capable of protecting Gothams inhabitants, and thus in line with his view
of what is just. Accordingly (and against Sharp), Batman is more than merely retributive. But the
means
Batman uses are particularly violent ones, including the threat of harm and the destruction of
property. These nasty and brutish features of Batmans violent activity links with his stepping
outside of safe civilisation as a counter-sovereign. Indeed, as in the movie Batman Begins we see
Batman literally fighting officers of the official law, using violence against the state in the name of
justice. We see Batman using physical harm to elicit information from a suspectactivity that can

1 A conclusive understanding of the social contract theory by Hobbes,Locke & Rousseau.

be classified as torture. He threatens and assaults Alberto Falcone in his own home \, and he
physically beats down an assembled group of his enemies are some examples of his physically
fighting criminals are too numerous to list comprehensively. How can this actions be recognised
as an act of justice rather than a act of crime?
Harm theory suggests that doing harm to others is a key aspect of human conduct that should be
prevented through the sanctions of criminal law, thus justifying state intervention in the lives of
citizens. Examples of harming another is doing violence to them like electrocution, being hit with a
stick, tying someone up against their willgreat examples of harming another. Yet, in order to
bring about the prevention or reduction of such harm- doing, the justice system employs the use of
force and coercion and other tactics of violence. For example, electrocuting someone with a Taser,
or using a nightstick, or binding someone with handcuffs.

The violence of Batman focused on in this paper is predominantly the physical coercion utilised by
Batman in his crime-fighting activitythe very real pain he inflicts and threatens as he cleans up
the streets. As Batman exists on the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate violence, as both
illegal vigilante and bastion of true justice beyond human law. Accordingly, the central question
becomes one of Batmans legitimacy as a fighter for justice, rather than the particular violence of
his methods.
A key question in Batmans justice activities is that of vengeanceof doing harm to another as
retaliation or response for some harm done by that other. As Rachel Dawes reminds us in Nolans
cinematic Batman Begins, vengeance and justice are not the same thing . Indeed, vengeance and
justice have been distinguished with respect to the power of a sovereign. All acts of revenge are
ultimately reprisals for some previous violent act, and necessarily give rise to further acts of
revenge; it is only the transcendent nature of law that can perform legitimate violence to quell the
need for vengeful reprisals within society. This same notion can be seen in The Long Halloween,
when Batman finally believes he has found the main perpetrator behind the crimes that drive the
overall narrative and starts to enact brutal, vengeful violence upon them. But rather than continuing
his assault, Batman realises that in order to remain legitimateto be a force for justicehe needs
to be able to dish out the appropriate punishment, and that means handing the villains over to the
state police for arrest, trial, and sentencing. It is not Batmans place to be judge and juryhe is a
protector, not a punisher.

A move beyond illegitimate violence can be seen in Batmans attempt to make Gotham just. Cover
makes a connection between martyrdom and the violence of law. Martyrs, he observes, suffer
extremes of pain (and indeed death) in the ardent hope that their own good law will prevail over
the bad law of the tyrant that inflicts such pain upon them.
Martyrdom is an extreme form of resistance to domination. As such it reminds us that the normative
world-building that constitutes Law is never just a mental or spiritual act. A legal world is built
only to the extent that there are commitments that place bodies on the line.
And Batman, in stepping outside the official law, sacrifices the protection he gets from that law,
placing his body and the bodies of others on the line in his desire to bring justice to Gotham. In
other words, to build a new legal order that is just, Batman imagines an idealised legal world
different from the existing corruption of the state, and lives with a willingness to suffer and create
pain to bring that imagined ideal into existence. In doing so, Batman asserts his own sovereignty
as we saw above, a counter-sovereignty that is in tension with the sovereignty of the state.
Batmans use of force arguably becomes reasonable because it fills the gaps left by the imperfect
state police. Accordingly, the capacity for individuals to police their own private interests does not
answer the question of the line between justice and vengeance; however it does suggest that the
difference between the two may be in the public or private nature of the activity or interest.

Conclusion:

It can be stated that natural law can be understood as seeking justice through the comparison of
objectives external and internal sources. However the problem with natural law is clearly attain the
set of universal principles as the problem lies with the settled universal principles, in our late
modern world of plurality and socio- cultural diversity. Despite of all the problems the natural law
can still form a source of resistance against unjust systems and laws. In reality whether the
wrongness is actually verified by law of not the resistance still occurs. The content of natural right
still exist and when the right are raised it lets to a lot of questions, but there exist a attempt to
balance the power between the government and the citizens. This is the case as in the case of
Batman, he completely acts outside the jurisdiction of the legal system. He acts as the force which
protects the poor and innocent people form the corrupt and criminals. In the world of Gotham, the
police cannot protect individuals adequately, for the system is either filled with bribery, fraud,
misconduct, and a whole array of bad apples, or is simply limited in its practical capabilities. In our
the non fictional world Batman exist as a symbol of complex characters, imbued with complex
characters, imbued with force of resistance. The symbol of Batman represents deeply personal
trauma that are at work in complex machinery of the judiciary.

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