Staging and the Imaginary Institution of the Judge

Abstract

According to the classical paradigm of the judicial act, the courthouse is a temple and the hearing is a ceremony. Even when secularized, justice rests upon a ritual and a ceremonial which confer on it both its sacredness and its authority. The origins of this staging are rooted in myth, religion and cosmogony which stem from the mediation of symbols. Through this ornamentation, the paternal figure is made present and guarantees, in a kind of irrational way, the authority of the institution. Since the mid nineties, the judicial institution has been emancipated from its staging. The modern goals of functionality and transparency of public services have progressively led to the abandoning of the sacredness of the judicial act, thus threatening its symbolic function. The purpose of this contribution is to highlight, through a semiotic approach, the dialectic opposing modernity and the authority of the judicial institution. 1 Jean Carbonnier (1908 was an eminent French professor of civil Law who renewed the French Civil Code. His writings are open to the sociology of law and the philosophy of law. 2 Sic. «Tout lieu d'audience, dans les socie´te´s archaı¨ques, est une aire sacre´e […] comme retranche´e du monde ordinaire» [6:17].

Jurilinguistique comparée: Essai de caractérisation d'une discipline multidimensionnelle

“…mentionner les ouvrages collectifs à caractère multiculturel: les manuels de jurilinguistique qui incluent des sections relatives aux questions comparatives 57 et les manuels de droit comparé qui incluent des sections sur la jurilinguistique. 58 En plus, il existe quelques traités à caractère général écrits par un seul auteur. 59 Les jurilinguistes ne se focalisent pas sur les mêmes questions dans leurs ouvrages, et les disciplines voisines n'y occupent pas, non plus, une position égale.…”

“…57 Tiersma & Solan 2016 [108]. 58 Pozzo 2012 [94] et Grosswald Curran 2019 [38]. 59 Par exemple, Mattila 2012 [69] et id.…”

“…Il est souvent difficile de transformer les codes de ce type sous forme verbale parce qu'ils sont lourdement chargés d'histoire, d'émotions et d'intuition(Wagner 2010 [119] p. 81). -Une analyse particulièrement intéressante sur les tendances actuelles vers la banalisation des cadres extérieurs des procès se trouve dans Lucien 2010[58].…”

Spatial and Security Organisation of Court Buildings: An Assessment of Selected High Court Buildings in Nigeria

“…According to Branco [15], a courthouse is a building specifically for delivering justice. Therefore, the courthouses edifices, through their specific complex internal organisation and architectures, offer not only a space for the process of justice and law, yet also outline setting through which people can essentially experience judicial processes [14,16,17]. Courthouse architecture and planning give a legitimate discourse to appropriate space and hence create a context, a structure, a distinct and a symbolic place (that is courthouse building and the courtroom), where the practice and state of the trial, the judicial procedure, and mainly judicial formal procedure occur and performed devoid of being disturbed by the external daily life.…”

Considering a different model for the Family and Children Courthouse Building. Reflections on the Portuguese experience

“…56, a courthouse is a building specifically for delivering justice. Thus, the courthouses' buildings, through their particular architectures and complex internal organisation, 1 provide not only a space for the operation of law and justice, but also define a scenery through which people can materially experience judicial authority (Goodrich 2008, Lucien 2010, Scheppele 2012. Courthouse architecture assigns legal discourse to a proper space, and hence creates a structure, a context, a special and symbolic place (the courthouse building, firstly, and the courtroom in it, secondly), where the theatricality and ceremonial of the trial and of the judicial procedure, and particularly judicial rituals, can occur e be performed without being disturbed by the external and ordinary management of daily life.…”