Cogitate the Context!

Abstract or Introduction

Maybe the ad writers did not appreciate the historical context while using the phrase SUUM CUIQUE in the german translation „Jedem das Seine“ to promote a new coffee for their clients ESSO and TCHIBO in 2009. Maybe they did not know that it was used as a redicule of the jewish prisoner in the KZ Buchenwald, in whose gate these words were engraved.
But „Ignorance is no defense“ - to answer with another phrase – and the accountable marketing people had to stop the campain immediately when the protests started (spiegel.de 2009).
For 2500 years people use the latin phrase SUUM CUIQUE. Some use it without any thinking about the historical meaning of this old saw, others appraise it as a tautologic phrase without any meaning because it offers no criterion which marks what everyone deserves. But if you look at the history of this words, you will find a long way of a saying that couches the initial point of any thinking about the constitution of justice. So it counts to the basic priciples of equality.
But what is the meaning of the phrase? Who had used it in which way in the past? And how can you use it today? Or can you only disuse it because of its youngest historical connotation?
To come up to the answers of these questions I want do to a historical excurs through the different contexts in which SUUM CUIQUE was used and abused in the past. Afterwards I want to answer the question, if the saying today is useful or useless. At this I also account for the conditions which in my opinion are relevant and have to be fulfilled if you use the saying today.