Dignity in the digital age: Broadcasting the Oscar Pistorius trial

Abstract

Oscar Pistorius was tried for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp in South Africa in 2014. His trial was broadcast live, after media agencies applied to the court for comprehensive access to the courtroom. The decision to broadcast the trial followed a careful and deliberative court ruling about the constitutional principles of human dignity, freedom and equality. South Africa’s post-apartheid Constitution provides a framework for achieving social transformation, and open justice plays an important role in it. Despite concerns about sensationalism and voyeurism, the broadcast of the Pistorius trial functioned as a constitutional experiment. This article evaluates the principles and practices of open justice in South Africa through the broadcast of the Pistorius trial, and the roles played by the media, the courts and the public. It identifies significant events during the trial, including its reporting, which had the effect of testing the compatibility of open justice, on the one hand, and the proper administration of justice, on the other. The right of an accused to a fair trial, at times, confronted the sensitivities of the victim’s family, the rights of the media and the demands of the public to witness justice being done. This article examines the tangled relationship between dignity and justice, compounded by the technologies of digital media, in the unique context of post-apartheid South Africa.

The ‘most maligned’ witness in the Christopher Dawson case: Gender, power, media and legal culture in the digitally distributed live-streamed court

“…Critical research has also been carried out by legal scholars, although here there is a tendency to focus on individual journalistic errors including the dangers of prejudicial publicity or contempt of court in particular cases, or concerns about the rise of untrained ‘citizen journalists’ or ‘court watchers’ with smartphones (Hews and Suzor, 2017; Reed, 2018). A handful of legal scholars have turned a critical eye on the impact of the court’s livestream technologies on broader human rights concepts such as privacy and dignity (Bernzen, 2018; Biber, 2019a; McKay, 2018), including the way the court’s livestream technologies shape the legal experiences of alleged victims (Smith, 2018) and alleged offenders (McKay, 2018). Others have speculated on the digital future of legal institutions with a utopian zeal, imagining the ‘Court of the Future’ operating in a 3D virtual reality space, in which judges, lawyers, witnesses and defendants are represented by avatars, in the manner of a computer game (Tait, 2017).…”

A criminal mind? A damaged brain? Narratives of criminality and culpability in the celebrated case of Aaron Hernandez

“…These types of sensationalized renderings, according to Calavita (2010), “permeate cultural vernacular in the United States” (p. 30), informing not only how we relate to and understand crime and justice, but also those who we see as perpetrators. As Leonard (2017: 93) explains, representations of Hernandez as “inherently evil” and “a ticking time bomb” are co-constructed with racialized 1 characterizations of him as a “gangsta” and a “thug.” Leonard compares these representations of Hernandez, a heavily tattooed and physically imposing man of Puerto Rican heritage, to media coverage of former South African Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, a White Afrikaner man who was convicted of shooting and killing his White girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp (see also Biber, 2018). According to Leonard (2017), journalists offer a more sympathetic depiction of Pistorius’ downfall: it was a tragic shift from heroic Olympian to convicted killer, a fall from grace precipitated by an unfortunate one-off event.…”

Media as a scholarly source of information: evidence from legal theses and dissertations

“…South African jurisprudence relies on the media to provide practicality to its open justice aspirations. The principle of open justice holds the country's courts to a higher standard that seeks to ensure that justice is not only done, but also seen to be done (Biber 2019;Milo & Stein 2013). It is through the media that many members of the public can see justice at work.…”

“…The media also provides a platform for South Africans to engage in discussions and debates about the nature of the justice system they would prefer. Through media debates and reports, many South Africans get to learn about the intricacies of the legal system and proceedings (Biber 2019;Milo & Stein 2013).…”

“…Despite the undeniable importance of the media for South African democracy (Gumede 2014) and jurisprudence (Biber 2019), it is not clear if scholars, including law students, cite media sources in their academic publications. Information on the extent and types of media sources cited by legal scholars seems to be limited.…”