Leadership Quote by Saad Hariri

“Justice is revenge” is the kind of deliberately abrasive compression politicians reach for when they want to puncture a comforting civic myth. Saad Hariri isn’t offering a neat philosophy of law; he’s naming an ugly political reality, one that resonates in a country where courts and cabinets have long been entangled with sectarian arithmetic, patronage, and score-settling.

The intent is twofold: to warn and to accuse. On its face, the line suggests that in practice “justice” often arrives wearing the costume of impartiality while serving the oldest motive in politics: payback. That reading fits Lebanon’s postwar landscape, where accountability for assassinations, corruption, and militia-era crimes has repeatedly been delayed, diluted, or rerouted into factional bargaining. When formal institutions fail to deliver timely, credible verdicts, justice gets reimagined as a weapon rather than a standard.

The subtext is even sharper: it implies that calls for justice can be less about restoring a shared moral order and more about legitimizing retaliation. In a fragile coalition system, prosecuting an opponent is rarely interpreted as neutral; it’s read as an attempt to shift power, humiliate a rival camp, or avenge a martyr. Hariri, whose political identity has been shaped by the assassination of his father Rafik Hariri and the long shadow of international tribunals, speaks from a context where legal processes are immediately politicized - and where public grief can be mobilized.

The line works because it refuses reassurance. It doesn’t flatter listeners with faith in institutions; it dares them to admit how often “justice” is just revenge with paperwork.