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.