In Italy’s courtrooms, the words ‘La legge è uguale per tutti’ – ‘Justice is equal for all’ – appear centre stage as a constant reminder of the legal system’s guiding principle.

Photographer Luca Sironi’s series on the country’s courthouses holds a mirror up to the maxim, questioning just how attainable impartial justice is in these spaces, so often the scene of controversy.

He captured 19 empty courthouses, from rooms in Brescia and Bergamo to Monza and Milan, for the 27-photo essay titled Fragments of justice. In each shot, the ghosts of past trials linger in the form of leftover folders and untucked chairs, blotching these otherwise rigid and symmetrical halls.

‘The deserted courtrooms do not seem to forget the speeches and debates: a lawyer’s robe thrown over a chair, a folder waiting to be rescued, marginal elements that may in some way bring to mind an idea of what happened during the trials,’ says Sironi.

‘These spaces are transformed every day into a stage on which a routine of tragedies and controversies is held.’

For Sironi, those little fragments of past court cases convey an imperfect human nature that ultimately makes true justice – objective and equal for all – impossible.

‘”La legge è uguale per tutti” certainly fulfills a deep need of our consciousness but that should not obscure the reality of things,’ he adds. ‘Each sentence depends on the personal attitude and history of each judge.

‘The human element is uncertain and unpredictable, in contrast to these courtrooms, so rigid and symmetrical.’