2/188 — Property eaten knowingly
"Do not eat one another's property wrongfully. And do not let it down to the judges, so as to eat a portion of people's property in sin, while you know."
وَتُدْلُوا۟ بِهَآ إِلَى ٱلْحُكَّامِ — the root d-l-w: to lower a bucket into a well. The verb pictures property being let down to the judge like a bucket — from above downward, secretly, in order to draw something up.
What is forbidden is doing wrong by using the law. And its mechanism is striking: here the law is not broken, the law is made an instrument. The process is run, a decision is taken, everything looks in order — and the outcome is unjust.
This is the counterpart in the field of law of the pattern followed throughout the sūra: going round the prohibition (2/65), altering the word (2/59), dressing falsehood in the garment of truth (2/42). In all of them the form is preserved and the function emptied out.