Morality on Trial: Structure and Intelligibility System of a Court Sentence Concerning Homosexuality

Baudouin Dupret

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.2.2.07

Authors

Baudouin Dupret Institut Français du Proche-Orient, Syria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.2.2.07

Keywords:

Law, ruling, praxiological study of texts, instructed action, intelligibility systems and ressources, institutional context, legal relevance, procedural correctness, legal characterization

Abstract

This article analyses the structural organization of a ruling issued by an Egyptian court in the trial known as the “Queen Boat case”, where several people were arrested on the ground of their alleged homosexuality. With the text, and only the text, as data, it aims at making explicit the possibilities open to potential readers of the ruling. The praxiological study of texts constitutes a relatively new domain of inquiry in which texts are considered as produced objects whose intelligibility is structured and organized in a way that provides instructions for the texts’ reading and accounts for their author’s worldview and purposes. The article briefly presents the Egyptian legal and judicial system. Then, through close observation of each of the constitutive elements and organizational features of the ruling, it shows how this text serves as a vehicle for a limited number of possible logical options. In other words, it describes aspects of the practical grammar of written legal adjudication. Finally, in conclusion, some remarks are formulated concerning rulings as instructed reading of cases submitted to judicial review.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Baudouin Dupret, Institut Français du Proche-Orient, Syria

Baudouin Dupret is educated in Law, Arabic and Islamic Sciences, and Political Sciences. He is research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and was based for several years in Cairo, Egypt, at the French Institute (CEDEJ). He is now based in Damascus, Syria, at the Institut Français du Proche- Orient (IFPO). He has published extensively in the field of the sociology and anthropology of law in the Middle East. His current work involves a praxiological approach to the production of truth in Arab contexts, including courts and parliaments, scientific expertise, the media, and religious education. He (co-)edited several volumes, among which Standing Trial: Law and the Person in the Modern Middle East (Tauris, 2004). He is the author of Au nom de quel droit. Répertoires juridiques et référence religieuse dans la société égyptienne musulmane contemporaine (Paris, Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2000) and Le Jugement en action. Ethnométhodologie du droit, de la morale et de la justice en Egypte (Geneva, Librairie Droz, 2006).

References

Drew, Paul, and John Heritage (1992) “Analyzing talk at work: an introduction.” Pp. 3-65 in Talk at Work. Interaction in Institutional Settings, edited by P. Drew and J. Heritage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dupret, Baudouin (2006) Le Jugement en action. Ethnométhodologie du droit, de la morale et de la justice en Egypte. Geneva: Librairie Droz.

Emerson, Robert M. (1983) “Holistic Effects In Social Control Decision-Making.” Law and Society Review 17(3): 425-55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3053588

Goffman, Erving (1981) Forms of Talk Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Hart, Herbert L.A. (1961) The Concept of Law Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hester, Stephen and Peter Eglin (1992) A Sociology of Crime. London and New York: Routledge.

Hester, Stephen and Peter Eglin (1997) “Membership Categorization Analysis: An Introduction.” Pp. 1-24 in Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis, edited by S. Hester and P. Eglin, Washington: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis & University Press of America.

Jackson, Bernard S. (1988) Law, Fact and Narrative Coherence. Liverpool: Deborah Charles Publications.

Jalbert, Paul (1999) “Critique and Analysis in Media Studies: Media Criticism as Practical Action.” Pp. 31-52 in Media Studies: Ethnomethodological Approaches, edited by P. Jalbert, Lanham: University Press of America.

Jayyusi, Lena (1984) Categorization and the Moral Order Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Lenoble, Jacques, and François Ost (1980) Droit, mythe et raison. Essai sur la dérive mytho-logique de la rationalité juridique Bruxelles: Publications des Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pusl.8612

Livingston, Eric (1995) An Anthropology of Reading. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Lynch, Michael, and David Bogen (1996) The Spectacle of History: Speech, Text, and Memory at the Iran-contra Hearings. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11sn042

Macbeth, Douglas (1999) “Glances, Trances, and Their Relevance for a Visual Sociology.” Pp. 135-170 in Media Studies: Ethnomethodological Approaches, edited by P. Jalbert. Lanham, New York, Oxford: University Press of America.

Matoesian, Gregory (2001) Law and the Language of Identity: Discourse in the William Kennedy Smith Rape Trial. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pollner, Melvin (1974) “Sociological and common-sense models of the labelling process.” Pp. 27-40 in Ethnomethodology: Selected Readings, edited by R. Turner. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.

Sacks, Harvey (1972) “On the analyzability of stories by children.” Pp. 325-345 in Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication, edited by J. J. Gumperz, & D. Hymes. New York: Rinehart & Winston.

Sudnow, David (1965) “Normal Crimes.” Social Problems 12: 251-276. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.1965.12.3.03a00010