Rumpole of the Bailey: The Re-mediation of Justice in Post-Colonial Legal Discourse

The present study investigates the legal, discursive and rhetorical features in the courtroom drama ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’, focusing on the episode ‘Rumpole and the Golden Thread’. Being appointed to defend a former student who has become Minister of the Interior, now charged with murder, the barrister Rumpole travels to an imaginary former British colony in Central Africa determined to restore justice and to reformulate and reaffirm the Golden Thread of Common Law according to which “no man shall be convicted if there is a reasonable doubt as to his guilt”. The linguistic analysis tries to ascertain whether and to what extent certain characters’ discursive and rhetorical features not only entertain the viewers but also inform, instruct and lead them through the intertwining of civilised British culture, local barbaric practices, complex legal systems and procedures, the critical condemnation of imperialism, and the unethical connection between politics and law in a now independent country.