People in Glass Houses - Review Article of Resnik and Curtis 'Representing Justice'

This article examines the arguments made around the historical and contemporary value of courthouses as democratic spaces in Curtis and Resnik’s Representing Justice: briefly, that the new paradigm of ‘‘transparent’’ glas s-cl ad courtrooms paradoxi cal l y masks t he antidemocratic devolution of justice into back-office proceduralism. While accepting the main thrust of this argument, the article also enters a couple of caveats relating to arguably novel forms of democratization that characterize the current representation of justice. Is there, for example, room to read at least some of the proceduralization described as itself democratic in its deflation of intimidatory ritual? And has ‘‘screen culture’’ now largely replaced the courtroom space as the contemporary icon of justice?