Judicial Communication: (Re)Constructing Legitimacy in Argentina

Abstract

INTRODUCTION In 2008 the Supreme Court of Argentina began implementing a judicial communication strategy. Crafted in the mid 2000s in response to low public support for and a lack of trust in the judiciary, the Supreme Court's communication strategy promises to create a more open and accessible judiciary. The Court's thinking: greater transparency, purposeful communication, and trained reporters would help the Court address its legitimacy and credibility deficits. Because the media plays a crucial intermediary role in shaping the public image of the court, media inattention, or worse misinterpretation or misrepresentation of judicial decisions, may serve to undermine judicial power and legitimacy. High courts have an institutional interest in making sure the press communicates the message justices want the public to understand about decisions and processes. Staton's (2010) work on the Mexican Supreme Court's use of strategic communication demonstrates how judges may construct their own power and legitimacy in part through a public relations strategy. Similarly, the Argentine Supreme Court has implemented a series of reforms aimed at increasing the court's transparency as well as a broader communication strategy with the explicit goal of improving the Supreme Court's legitimacy and public image and fortifying its authority vis-a-vis other political actors. This chapter describes the Court's communication and media strategy and asks whether these reforms have served to mitigate the Court's credibility gap with the public. The analysis is preliminary. The reforms have unfolded over multiple years and have been fully implemented only recently. Moreover, the Court and media have operated in a highly polarized political context that increasingly divided society between those who supported the Kirchner administrations (in power from 2003 to 2015) on the populist left and those who did not. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court's efforts to improve its credibility and begin to reconstruct its public legitimacy have succeeded among key social and political audiences, helping the Court to build stronger relationships with civil society organizations and the media and make important democratic allies (Litvachky and Zayat 2007, 126).