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Staging Justice: Courtroom Semiotics and the Judicial Ideology in China

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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The right to a fair trial as a fundamental human right has been widely established in the international community. While the notion of a fair trial is typically associated with procedural safeguards, fairness can be reflected in spatial dimensions (Tait in Chic Kent Law Rev 86:467, 2011). Courtroom design, apart from achieving its main functional objectives, reflects the institutional ideology of how justice can be staged in public. In alignment with the perspective that courtroom as theatre consists of a sign system, this paper adopts a semiotic approach to the courtroom setting of Chinese criminal trials. With a thick description of space, mobility and attire, it attempts to probe into how judicial ideology is symbolically framed in the field. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork of three courts, this paper discusses how courtroom space is constructed semiotically as a performative stage on which legal dramas unfold (Ng in The common law in two voices: language, law, and the postcolonial dilemma in Hong Kong. Stanford University Press, Redwood City, 2009). Ultimately this paper argues that a semiotic investigation of Chinese courtrooms will shed light on an understanding of its judicial value, ideology of justice and dynamics of power relationship.

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Notes

  1. The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. 27 May 1985. The Stipulation Issued by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on the Arrangement of the Bench, the Prosecution Table and the Defence Table (最高人民法院、最高人民检察院关于人民法院审判法庭审判台、公诉台、辩护台位置的规定).

  2. The Supreme People’s Court. 8 December 1993. The Notice Issued by the Supreme People’s Court on the Name of the Courtroom, the Layout of the Adjudication Area and the Hanging of the National Emblem (最高人民法院关于法庭的名称、审判活动区布置和国徽悬挂问题的通知).

  3. The Central Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs. 31 January 1997. The Notice Issued by the Central Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs, Communist Party of China on Several Issues Following the Implementation of the Revised Criminal Procedure Law (中共中央政法委员会关于实施修改后的刑事诉讼法几个问题的通知).

  4. In my trial observations, a majority of defendants are male and interpreters are predominantly female. Therefore, to make distinction, “he” is used to refer to the defendant and “she” is used to refer to the interpreter. The use of these two pronouns does not mean that all defendants are male and all interpreters are female.

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Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Dr. Janny Leung and Prof. Chris Hutton for their valuable comments on the draft.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of English for International Business, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, No. 2 Baiyun Avenue North, Guangzhou, 510420, China

    Biyu Du

  2. School of English, The University of Hong Kong, Room 735, Run Run Shaw Tower, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China

    Biyu Du

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  1. Biyu Du
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Correspondence to Biyu Du.

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Du, B. Staging Justice: Courtroom Semiotics and the Judicial Ideology in China. Int J Semiot Law 29, 595–614 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-015-9444-7

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