JUSTICIAE REX

[Comité de salut]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen.
This is the Latin phrase carved above the door of one of the courtrooms of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan.
I see it wrong in two ways:
1. "justiCiae" should be "justiTiae";
2. word order should be reverse: "rex justitiae" (like "rex iudaeorum" in INRI).
Is my understanding correct?
P.S. i'm no latin specialist, just had it in the curriculum

 

[Pacifica]

1. "justiCiae" should be "justiTiae";

The more correct/classical spelling is justitiae, yes. However, justiciae was a frequent medieval (mis)spelling.

2. word order should be reverse: "rex justitiae" (like "rex iudaeorum" in INRI).

No, it's fine in either order.

 

[Comité de salut]

Thank you. But then why phrases like "casus belli", "jus gentium", "corpus delicti" etc. are always in that order?

 

[scrabulista]

Word order is flexible -- meaning is determined by word ending rather than word order.
It's possible that justiciae rex is taken from a longer sentence

 

[Pacifica]

Thank you. But then why phrases like "casus belli", "jus gentium", "corpus delicti" etc. are always in that order?

I guess people, especially in later times, tended to put short phrases like those in that order because they felt it as the default order. Conversely, though, there are some phrases that are either always or most of the time arranged the other way round: senatus consultum, terrae motus... So sometimes it's just a matter of usage, which fixed the words of a set phrase in a certain order for some reason. But generally speaking, there is no rule about whether the genitive comes before or after the noun that it modifies, and both orders are abundantly attested in Latin literature.

 

[cinefactus]

gentium ius
belli casus