Tortured Reality

Judicial independence is not just an abstract principle that systems of government ensuring the rule of law must adhere to. It is also a concrete standard, set out in binding (as well as in some non-binding) human rights documents and enforced by human rights courts all over the world. These multiple human rights documents and human rights courts have developed legal norms relating to judicial independence but in doing so, have they taken the shaky nature of the assumption that individuals and institutions can exert true agency, uninfluenced by their environments, into account? This book addresses this by studying the very particular issue of the effect of the frames employed in print news media on judicial independence. The question is whether the print news media's framing of the practice of waterboarding influenced judicial opinions of this practice and if so, did this influence compromise judicial independence? The book looks at judicial independence as it is defined in international human rights documents and also in light of the democratic purpose behind judicial independence.