Five Cent Piece – While the gavel gently weeps
Oh, Judge Masipa, wherefore art thou?
Commentary by Kyle Cowan
Oh, Judge Masipa, wherefore art thou?
You will often read news reports that say “an uproar ensued”, or something to that tune. Well, Judge Thokozile Masipa has caused one of the biggest uproars in legal history.
Why is there an uproar? Because media, both national and international, have created so much hype surrounding the Oscar trial.
The Oscar trial represents the death of actual news reporting. Yes, the famous paralympian athlete shot his girlfriend, accident or no. Seriously? There are twenty more violent murders every day. Every year thousands of women are raped in this country. Drugs are rampant, corruption is ever present and the entire world focuses on a dingy courtroom in South Africa to hear why someone was shot.
One must acknowledge the brilliant way in which the legal teams played the crowd. From Oscar’s ‘evasive’ tactics and melodrama, making him an ‘unreliable witness’. (Don’t worry, it took a while for that one to sink in for Five Cent Piece too). Yes, the South African justice system has labelled a man accused of murder as unreliable in his own murder case. This is groundbreaking legal stuff.
The performance went on when Judge Masipa called a halt to proceedings on the first day of judgement at 2.30pm, staying judgement over to the next day, leaving the entire world in limbo. Court closes at 4pm, surely? The reason for this? So that front pages could ask the questions, and social media could buzz for a good few hours.
The media has followed this case with the intensity of a bulldog eyeing a nice fillet, dripping with the stuff gossip magazines’ dreams are made of. Why? Because it is the closest reporters and journalists can get to reality TV without actually sacrificing journalistic ethics.
And the Academy Award goes to…the marketing team behind ‘Oscar Trial Industries’.
