Chapter 11 Criminal law, court architecture, and the space of justice: Stakeholder perceptions of ‘special’ courts used in child sexual abuse trials in India
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Shailesh Kumar
Abstract
This paper focuses on the stakeholder perceptions of the legal reform brought to improve the trial experience of the child victims of sexual abuse in India through a special legislation - the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 (POCSO). The law focuses on providing a child-friendly trial space with the help of purposely built customized ‘special’ courts. Several questions, thus, arise: what do POCSO special courts look like? How do they operate? Do these courts provide the child-friendly trial space required by the POCSO law? I examine the materialities of the special courts that have bearing on the nature and function of criminal trial space, and thereby on child witnesses, by analysing the stakeholders’ perceptions and experiences of using these courts. I also examine court architecture, the use of paintings and technology, and how they organise courtroom narratives and interactions between courtroom actors during child sexual abuse (CSA) trials. It is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, i.e., legal professionals such as judges, defence lawyers, public prosecutors, as well as support persons, and observation of POCSO special courts and trials. As the stakeholders identified, the geography of the trial has significant implications for access to justice for child victims during the trial. Findings suggest severe disparity within the country in terms of implementation of the reform. The stakeholders believe that reforms such as changes to courtroom design (e.g., establishing a vulnerable witness deposition room (VWDR) or the use of a video link for trial) have improved child witnesses’ experiences, but also highlight that such reforms will remain superficial if other factors such as the socio-legal culture around the adversarial trial and CSA, and stakeholder training, do not employ a trauma-informed care approach.
Abstract
This paper focuses on the stakeholder perceptions of the legal reform brought to improve the trial experience of the child victims of sexual abuse in India through a special legislation - the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 (POCSO). The law focuses on providing a child-friendly trial space with the help of purposely built customized ‘special’ courts. Several questions, thus, arise: what do POCSO special courts look like? How do they operate? Do these courts provide the child-friendly trial space required by the POCSO law? I examine the materialities of the special courts that have bearing on the nature and function of criminal trial space, and thereby on child witnesses, by analysing the stakeholders’ perceptions and experiences of using these courts. I also examine court architecture, the use of paintings and technology, and how they organise courtroom narratives and interactions between courtroom actors during child sexual abuse (CSA) trials. It is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, i.e., legal professionals such as judges, defence lawyers, public prosecutors, as well as support persons, and observation of POCSO special courts and trials. As the stakeholders identified, the geography of the trial has significant implications for access to justice for child victims during the trial. Findings suggest severe disparity within the country in terms of implementation of the reform. The stakeholders believe that reforms such as changes to courtroom design (e.g., establishing a vulnerable witness deposition room (VWDR) or the use of a video link for trial) have improved child witnesses’ experiences, but also highlight that such reforms will remain superficial if other factors such as the socio-legal culture around the adversarial trial and CSA, and stakeholder training, do not employ a trauma-informed care approach.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments VII
- Contents IX
- Foreword XIII
- Introduction: More than (just) words 1
-
Part I: (Just) words
-
Legal perspectives
- Chapter 1 Metalanguage in the penalty phase of a capital trial: A study of two monologic genres 27
- Chapter 2 Political discrimination or reasonable conduct? Motive-implicative discourse moves in a civil trial’s closing arguments 49
- Chapter 3 Legal-lay interaction and recontextualization in Swedish criminal proceedings 73
-
Non-legal perspectives
- Chapter 4 . . .and I’m telling you honestly, I don’t measure: Emotive reframing and evasiveness in expert testimony 99
- Chapter 5 Navigating the linguistic complexity of cross-examination: The role of the witness intermediary for an autistic defendant 127
- Chapter 6 Between semantics and pragmatics: Witnesses’ credibility and the linguistic expression of the source of information in Italian criminal trials 149
- Chapter 7 Identity construction in complainants’ narratives in the investigative public hearings on the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory administration 185
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Part II: More than (just) words
-
Speech and gesture
- Chapter 8 I wanna be somebody: Enacted reported thought in an actual jury deliberation 213
- Chapter 9 Multimodal discursive authority of the judge: Analyzing the judge’s interactions with courtroom participants in Chinese criminal trials 231
-
Image and architecture
- Chapter 10 Allegories of justice in contemporary France: In search of a new paradigm 267
- Chapter 11 Criminal law, court architecture, and the space of justice: Stakeholder perceptions of ‘special’ courts used in child sexual abuse trials in India 293
- Index 319
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments VII
- Contents IX
- Foreword XIII
- Introduction: More than (just) words 1
-
Part I: (Just) words
-
Legal perspectives
- Chapter 1 Metalanguage in the penalty phase of a capital trial: A study of two monologic genres 27
- Chapter 2 Political discrimination or reasonable conduct? Motive-implicative discourse moves in a civil trial’s closing arguments 49
- Chapter 3 Legal-lay interaction and recontextualization in Swedish criminal proceedings 73
-
Non-legal perspectives
- Chapter 4 . . .and I’m telling you honestly, I don’t measure: Emotive reframing and evasiveness in expert testimony 99
- Chapter 5 Navigating the linguistic complexity of cross-examination: The role of the witness intermediary for an autistic defendant 127
- Chapter 6 Between semantics and pragmatics: Witnesses’ credibility and the linguistic expression of the source of information in Italian criminal trials 149
- Chapter 7 Identity construction in complainants’ narratives in the investigative public hearings on the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory administration 185
-
Part II: More than (just) words
-
Speech and gesture
- Chapter 8 I wanna be somebody: Enacted reported thought in an actual jury deliberation 213
- Chapter 9 Multimodal discursive authority of the judge: Analyzing the judge’s interactions with courtroom participants in Chinese criminal trials 231
-
Image and architecture
- Chapter 10 Allegories of justice in contemporary France: In search of a new paradigm 267
- Chapter 11 Criminal law, court architecture, and the space of justice: Stakeholder perceptions of ‘special’ courts used in child sexual abuse trials in India 293
- Index 319
