What Is Justice?

After getting involved in the Make Poverty History campaign, World Vision 40 Hour Famine and UNOH's Surrender Conference with Jackie Pullinger lately, I have been thinking quite a bit about the poverty and justice issues. I spent some time tonight reading through articles about the idea of justice on the internet. In the process, I came cross this article about 'what is justice' on Christianity Today, which really got me thinking.

The author Charles Colson (who has had thirty years of ministry experience in the criminal justice arena) discussed the classic definition of justice being "each person gets his due." He asserted that neither liberals (who think that getting their due means giving benefits to the needy) nor conservatives (who think that getting their due means punishing wrongdoers) have it quite right. He believes that biblical justice includes both punishment and meeting social needs, which is called "balancing the scales of justice" according to C.S. Lewis.

If that is the case, how can we truly balance these scales of justice? I really don't have the answer (and in fact pretty puzzled by it all), and wondering if any reader out there can give me some help in this.