The judiciary as play and rules of the legal game

This chapter expands on the previous one by defining how the concepts of play and game are relevant for an analysis of justice and jurisdiction in the context of spectacle-cultures. It focuses, next to the NSU case, on thousands of cases brought forward against Monsanto and its new owner, Bayer, with regard to the glyphosate-based product Roundup. In this context play is relevant in the sense that any court case is a space of play ( Spielraum ) with possibilities, both in terms of the search for truth and in relation to the principal openness of the case’s outcome. If these are missing, trials threaten to become (political) show trials. Any court case also follows a game logic in that it works with established and collectively accepted rules that orchestrate the judiciary’s work and guarantee its trustworthiness through time. If these rules are missing, trials run the risk of becoming arbitrary expressions of power – or of foul play. In relation to both play and game the role of the expert is an ambiguous one. Do experts widen or limit the Spielraum of justice; are they part of the legal game, or are they used by others to play a game with jurisdiction? This is worked out via the Bayer/Monsanto case.