Justification

Justification (a term of jurisprudence) is a form of defense in which a defendant argues that although they broke the law, they should not be held liable for, or found guilty of, a crime, as some special or extenuating circumstance(s) existed such that the illegal action was, for some reason or other, reasonable and acceptable. Possible justifications include: consent, defense of others, defense of property, necessity, resisting unlawful arrest, and self-defense.

---

Justification is also a publishing term used to describe the horizontal positioning of text or images, typically relative to a column.