From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishrough justicerough justicePUNISHpunishment that is not decided in a court in the usual legal way, and that is often severe or unfair Gangs practise a kind of rough justice on their members. → rough
Examples from the Corpus
rough justice• Exiled by Bolcarro to that judicial Siberia, Judge Lyttle applied his own rough justice.• For that he was put to death and there was, in one respect, a rough justice about it.• Perhaps this was rough justice for my having ridden that one mile on the workmen's lorry on the sixth day.• So there was rough justice in the world.• the rough justice of the Old West• Here rappers become vigilantes or revolutionaries: machines for dispensing rough justice or revenge.• It seemed to her to be the nearest thing to rough justice that would ever present itself.• On the other hand this meted out only a very rough justice to owners.• But the appetite for rough justice which the gun-toting sheriff satisfied does not easily go away.