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The Secrets of Law

Online ISBN:
9780804783903
Print ISBN:
9780804782593
Publisher:
Stanford University Press
Book

The Secrets of Law

Austin Sarat (ed.),
Austin Sarat
(ed.)
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Lawence Douglas (ed.),
Lawence Douglas
(ed.)
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Martha Merrill Umphrey (ed.)
Martha Merrill Umphrey
(ed.)
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Published online:
20 June 2013
Published in print:
31 October 2012
Online ISBN:
9780804783903
Print ISBN:
9780804782593
Publisher:
Stanford University Press

Abstract

This book explores the ways law both traffics in and regulates secrecy. Taking a close look at the opacity built into legal and governance processes, it explores the ways law produces zones of secrecy, the relation between secrecy and justice, and how we understand the inscrutability of law's processes. The first half of the work examines the role of secrecy in contemporary political and legal practices—including the question of transparency in democratic processes during the Bush Administration, the principle of public justice in England's response to the war on terror, and the evidentiary law of spousal privilege. The second half of the book explores legal, literary, and filmic representations of secrets in law, focusing on how knowledge about particular cases and crimes is often rendered opaque to those attempting to access and decode the information. Those invested in transparency must ultimately cultivate a capacity to read between the lines, decode the illegible, and acknowledge both the virtues and dangers of the unknowable.

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