Visible justice: YouTube and the UK Supreme Court

The purpose of the article is to undertake a critical examination of a new audiovisual form of judicial communicati on developed by the UK Supreme Court. An audiovisual recording of the judge delivering a summary of the judgment now accompanies the publication of the full written judgment and a two page “ press summary ” of the judgment. The summary judgment video is avai lable for viewing on demand and at a distance via The Internet. The article begins by introducing the audiovisual data that makes up the video case study at the centre of this study and outlines the methods used to undertake the subsequent analysis. It is followed by a review of a number of fields of scholarship and debates that the study of these videos engages with: about cameras in courts; transparency and open justice; and news media representations of courts. A consideration of these literatures provid es an opportunity to identify and consider how this study helps to make sense of the Court’s video initiative. It also provides an opportunity to consider the contribution that this study can make to those areas of work. An analysis of the case study video s follows, beginning with a consideration of the representations of the court, the judge and judgment that are to be found in those videos. Attention then turns to study the some of the cultural assumptions and institutional factors that shape the visibili ty of judgment that the videos are generating. The paper ends with some reflections and conclusions about the nature of this visibility and the contribution that the summary judgment videos make to “ open justice ” and the “ transparency ” of the court; in par ticular the judiciary and judicial decision - making

What\u27s Home Got To Do With It? Kinship, Space, and the Case of Family, Spouse and Civil Partnership in the UK

The analysis that is offered in this Article has two dimensions. The first focuses upon the context in which the battle for legal recognition of same-sex partnerships has taken place. Using two key reported decisions from the U.K.\u27s final domestic court of appeal, Fitzpatrick v Sterling Housing and Ghaidan v Mendoza, the objective here is to explore the shifting terrain against which legal activism relating to the recognition of same-sex domestic relationships has achieved some success in the U.K. These two cases represent key developments in the judicial recognition of the rights of parties in same-sex domestic relationships. These cases have particular importance. In Fitzpatrick, the House of Lords decided that a same-sex couple\u27s relationship fell within the meaning of family. In Ghaidan the court decided that the term spouse was to be applied to same-sex couples. Some of the key legal effect

Visual culture and the judiciary: the Judges’ service and breakfast

This working paper is made up of a selection of my photographic images of the annual ‘Judges Service’ at Westminster Abbey, on the 1st of October 2009. The service is ‘a private event’ marking the start of the UK legal year (see http://www.westminster-abbey.org/worship/special-services). The images I was able to make are limited to the arrival of judges at Westminster Abbey and their departure to the Palace of Westminster. Media photographers were allowed into the Abbey and images from inside were included in news media reports. See for example http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article/article-1217459 The Parliament website explains, ‘The ceremony…has roots in the religious practice of judges praying for guidance at the beginning of the year. The custom dates back to the Middle Ages…’ After the service the judges leave the Abbey via a rear entrance and walked to the Palace of Westminster where the Lord Chancellor entertains them with a ‘breakfast’ . (See http://wwwparliament.uk/about/occassions/lcbreakfast.cfm) This year the service coincided with the opening of the new UK Supreme Court (see http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/). The Justices of the Supreme Court walked from the new court building on Parliament Square to Westminster Abbey to participate in the service

Cartes de visite and the first mass media photographic images of the English judiciary: continuity and change

The goal of this chapter is to explore the impact that the invention of a particular type of photographic image, the carte de visite, had on visual images of the judiciary in England from the 1860s. The carte de visite is widely regarded as an innovation that helped widen access to photography. It is also associated with the birth of photography as a form of mass media. Evidence that the English judiciary were caught up in the frenzy of production and consumption that accompanied these developments, what contemporary commentators called ‘carteomania’ and ‘cardomania’, is to be found in a number of sources. These include catalogues of carte portraits on sale to the public and examples of carte portraits in collections such as London’s National Portrait Gallery and archives such as the library of Lincoln’s Inn. The chapter examines some of the effects that the encounter between the English judiciary and the technological and media innovations that come together in this format had upon the visual representation of the judiciary in the nineteenth century. How if at all did this encounter affect what appears within the frame of judicial portraiture? What impact if any did it have on other pictures of judges? These questions will be answered by way of a case study, focusing on Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn. He became Chief Justice of Common Pleas in 1856, Chief Justice of Queens Bench in 1859 and in 1875 he took up the post of Lord Chief Justice in the newly reformed courts

Bias crime policing: ‘The Graveyard Shift’

Bias crime is crime that is motivated by prejudice or bias towards an attribute of the victim, such as race, religion or sexuality. Police have been criticised for failing to take bias crime seriously. There is a pressing need to understand the reasons for this failure. This article aims to address this gap by presenting the results of the first empirical study of bias crime policing in the Australian state of New South Wales. Drawing on interviews with the New South Wales Police Force, our study found that sustainable reform in this domain has proven elusive. This can be attributed to a number of key challenges: reporting; recording; identification; framing; community engagement and leadership. The lessons that emerge from our findings have important ramifications for all police organisations

A previously unexplored encounter: the English judiciary, carte de visite and photography as a form of mass media

Studies exploring the link between the representation of judges, photography and mass media tend to focus on the appearance of cameras in courtrooms and the reproduction of the resulting photographs in the press at the beginning of the 20th century. But more than 50 years separates these developments from the birth of photography, in the late 1830’s. This study examines a previously unexplored encounter between the English judiciary and photography that began in the 1860’s. The pictures where known as ‘carte de visite’. They were the first type of photographic image capable of being mass produced. It’s a form of photography that for a period of almost 20 years attracted a frenzy of interest. Drawing upon a number of archives, including the library of Lincoln’s Inn, London’s National Portrait Gallery and my own personal collection this article has two objectives. The first is to examine the carte portraits of senior members of the judiciary that were produced during that time. What appears within the frame of this new form of portraiture? Of particular interest is the impact the chemical and technological developments that come together in carte photographs had on what appears within the frame of judicial portraits. The second objective is to examine the manner in which they were displayed. This engages a commonplace of scholarship on portraiture; the location and mode of display shape the meaning of what lies within the frame of the picture. Carte portraits were produced with a particular display in mind: the album. They were to be viewed not in isolation but as part of an assemblage of portraits. Few albums survive. Those that do offer a rare opportunity to examine the way carte portraits of judges were used and the meanings they generated through their display. Three albums containing carte portraits of judges will be considered

Structural insights into Clostridium perfringens delta toxin pore formation

Clostridium perfringens Delta toxin is one of the three hemolysin-like proteins produced by C. perfringens type C and possibly type B strains. One of the others, NetB, has been shown to be the major cause of Avian Nectrotic Enteritis, which following the reduction in use of antibiotics as growth promoters, has become an emerging disease of industrial poultry. Delta toxin itself is cytotoxic to the wide range of human and animal macrophages and platelets that present GM2 ganglioside on their membranes. It has sequence similarity with Staphylococcus aureus β-pore forming toxins and is expected to heptamerize and form pores in the lipid bilayer of host cell membranes. Nevertheless, its exact mode of action remains undetermined. Here we report the 2.4 Å crystal structure of monomeric Delta toxin. The superposition of this structure with the structure of the phospholipid-bound F component of S. aureus leucocidin (LukF) revealed that the glycerol molecules bound to Delta toxin and the phospholipids in LukF are accommodated in the same hydrophobic clefts, corresponding to where the toxin is expected to latch onto the membrane, though the binding sites show significant differences. From structure-based sequence alignment with the known structure of staphylococcal α-hemolysin, a model of the Delta toxin pore form has been built. Using electron microscopy, we have validated our model and characterized the Delta toxin pore on liposomes. These results highlight both similarities and differences in the mechanism of Delta toxin (and by extension NetB) cytotoxicity from that of the staphylococcal pore-forming toxins

A Sino-German 6cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane VII. Small supernova remnants

We study the spectral and polarization properties of supernova remnants (SNRs) based on our 6cm survey data. The observations were taken from the Sino-German 6cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane. By using the integrated flux densities at 6cm together with measurements at other wavelengths from the literature we derive the global spectra of 50 SNRs. In addition, we use the observations at 6cm to present the polarization images of 24 SNRs. We derived integrated flux densities at 6cm for 51 small SNRs with angular sizes less than 1 degree. Global radio spectral indices were obtained in all the cases except for Cas A. For SNRs G15.1-1.6, G16.2-2.7, G16.4-0.5, G17.4-2.3, G17.8-2.6, G20.4+0.1, G36.6+2.6, G43.9+1.6, G53.6-2.2, G55.7+3.4, G59.8+1.2, G68.6-1.2, and G113.0+0.2, the spectra have been significantly improved. From our analysis we argue that the object G16.8-1.1 is probably an HII region instead of a SNR. Cas A shows a secular decrease in total intensity, and we measured a flux density of 688+/-35 Jy at 6cm between 2004 and 2008. Polarized emission from 25 SNRs were detected. For G16.2-2.7, G69.7+1.0, G84.2-0.8 and G85.9-0.6, the polarized emission is detected for the first time confirming them as SNRs. High frequency observations of SNRs are rare but important to establish their spectra and trace them in polarization in particular towards the inner Galaxy where Faraday effects are important.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in A&