The Democratic Courthouse: A Modern History of Design, Due Process and Dignity

Description

The Democratic Courthouse examines how changing understandings of the relationship between government and the governed came to be reflected in the buildings designed to house the modern legal system from the 1970s to the present day in England and Wales. The book explores the extent to which egalitarian ideals and the pursuit of new social and economic rights altered existing hierarchies and expectations about how people should interact with each other in the courthouse. Drawing on extensive public archives and private archives kept by the Ministry of Justice, but also using case studies from other jurisdictions, the book details how civil servants, judges, lawyers, architects, engineers and security experts have talked about courthouses and the people that populate them. In doing so, it uncovers a changing history of ideas about how the competing goals of transparency, majesty, participation, security, fairness and authority have been achieved, and the extent to which aspirations towards equality and participation have been realised in physical form. As this book demonstrates, the power of architecture to frame attitudes and expectations of the justice system is much more than an aesthetic or theoretical nicety. Legal subjects live in a world in which the configuration of space, the cues provided about behaviour by the built form and the way in which justice is symbolised play a crucial, but largely unacknowledged, role in creating meaning and constituting legal identities and rights to participate in the civic sphere. Key to understanding the modern-day courthouse, this book will be of interest to scholars and students in all fields of law, architecture, sociology, political science, psychology and criminology. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgements List of figures, charts and tables Table of cases Table of legislation Abbreviations and acronyms Preface 1 Designing for democracy: the geopolitics of the courthouse Introduction Courts in democracies Democracy in courts A jurisprudence of design A democratic aesthetic? From a jurisprudence of design to humane design Why does a critical approach to the architecture of law courts matter? Why this period? Methodology and the microphysics of power The structure of the book Conclusion Notes References Part I Towards a democratic courthouse 2 The birth of a modern criminal justice system Introduction What problems were reformers seeking to solve? The state of the court estate in the 1970s Radical reform: a thirst for modernisation The reforming Lord Chancellor: Gerald Gardiner The logical scientist: Richard Beeching Transformation of the court estate Conclusion Notes References 3 A shift towards democratic courthouses? Introduction The balance between old and new The building wrapper Spaces of transition Zoning in the courthouse The public zone The performance hub The prison in the courthouse Conclusion Notes References Part II Professional voices 4 Moving targets: the challenges of the Beeching reforms for Whitehall Introduction A unity of all the talents? The Court Standards Working Party Scope for innovation: between a rock and a hard place Webs of influence and responsibility The immediate demand for courts The young pretender: expertise in the Lord Chancellor’s Department Rising tensions A shifting political agenda Conclusion Notes References 5 Architectural agency in imagining the democratic courthouse Introduction Shifting perceptions of the role of architecture in the public sphere A nexus of architectural discourse The private sector In house salaried architects Architects as regulators The facilitation of architectural voice Constraints on the autonomy of architects and design excellence An incomplete professional project Towards standardisation of design? Aesthetic concerns as a costly nuisance Conclusion Notes References 6 The courthouse as machine: technocratic understandings of legal space Introduction The concept of a design guide Court design guides Lexical units and taxonomies Justice and technocracy Conclusion Notes References Part III Lay voices? 7 Who was consulted? hierarchies of knowledge in the articulation of design principles Introduction A thirst for consultation Consultation hierarchies Elite professionals Non-elite professional groups The marginalised Conclusion Notes References 8 Danger and democracy: outsiders in the public sphere Introduction Placing the public in the courtroom Danger and democracy Stranger danger in the courthouse Rendering proceedings opaque: sightlines in the courtroom The courthouse as fortress Conclusion Notes References 9 Docks and locks in criminal courts Introduction Safe spaces Diminishing facilities for the defendant Incarceration in the courtroom Rooms within rooms: the enclosure of the dock The advent of the ‘secure dock’ Mounting concerns about the dock Security or resources? Conclusion Notes References 10 Flexible futures Introduction Vanishing trials and vanishing courthouses Changes to who uses the litigation system and how they use it Appearing in court The use of alternative venues for trials Possible futures Towards a new jurisprudence of design Flexible spaces The need to design for a distributed estate Consulting with lay users and allowing them to regulate virtual justice spaces Conclusion Notes References Appendix: List of archival materials consulted The National Archives (UK) (TNA) (open access) TNA files – analysed as pertinent TNA files – analysed as not pertinent, or only marginally relevant Ministry of Justice Archives (MoJ) (UK) (closed access) MoJ files analysed Further archival materials were consulted from the following collections Index