1. ALTER EGOS: THE MISE-EN-SCÈNE OF LAW AND AESTHETICS

Abstract

The contours of the question of transmission or jurisdiction receive a particularly sharp delineation in a recent judgment from the annals of contempt of court. How can the solicitor scandalise the court, without destroying the law? Consider Anissa v Parsons. It involves the doctrine of contempt by scandalising – the most feudal of the three legally recognised types of contempt used to keep “the streams of justice clear and pure.”5 And the question that the judgment confronts is the technical and representational ordering of law, and specifically the articulation and disarticulation of two orders – that of the court and that of law.