MEDIA TRIAL: THE DEFINITION UNDEFINED

In the Constitutional Democracy like ours, there is separation of powers among the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. Legislature enacts the Law, Executive enforces the Law & Judiciary interprets the Law. Thus, they are called three estates of Democracy but with the evolving time Media has also played a greater role in protecting, preserving & defending the Constitution and thus it has now been regarded as ‘fourth estate’ of Democracy.

When a crime is committed in the society the State punishes the offender as it is the responsibility of the State to ensure the Rule of Law be maintained in the State and ‘Justice’ be given to the victim, who is a responsible citizen of the state and whose life is as much as precious to the state as its any other subject. With the responsibility to ensure Justice be done and must be seem to be done to the victim, the state on other hand has also the responsibility to ensure that an accused person should get a fair trial in accordance with the accepted principles of natural justice.

Thus, the accused is brought before Court of Law and then he is adjudged ‘guilty or not guilty’. But sometimes newspapers systematically conduct an independent investigation into a crime for which a man has been arrested and publish the results of the investigations, which is also called “Investigative Journalism”, but when they adjudge them Guilty or Not Guilty on basis of such investigation the effect is that the accused is judged before being adjudged, and the Judgement of Court of Law gets eclipsed by the Judgement of People’s Court and the thin line between the Investigative Journalism and Media Trial get blurred and overlap.

Thus in this post I Intend to write a poem on the Media Trial, and the fall of republic and importance of achieving the republic. It follows that:-

"Wars have been fought, Bloodshed being brought,

In the Land of Law, Injustice under the Justice was carried out,

Anarchy wore a kingly crown, in his grasp a sceptre shone,

And on his brow a mark I saw, which said,

I am God, King and the Law!

 In the darkness that prevailed everywhere, 

The rays of hope seems to fall in the land, here and there,

People arose like Lions in the anger, after a deep slumber,

In an unvanquishable number, 

Demanded Liberty, Equality, Speech and Expression,

That has been taken through Power and Annexation,

Democracy we achieved, its value was not meagre,

As it has to live forever,

Legislature, Executive & Judiciary were its pillar,

With the passage of time media became the voice of tiller,

Being the Bulwark of democracy, it represented the vox populi,

Disseminated the information & strengthened the nation,

But time comes when the rights are abused, 

People are being held guilty when they are accused,

When media crosses its limits and become plenipotentiary,

When it usurps another pillar’s power and acts like Super-Judiciary, 

Trial by Media prevails in the Court of Kangaroo,

Where Rule of Law will meet with its waterloo,

A house divided against itself, how it can stand?

How it would nurture the ideals of this holy land,

If fall the Republic and its Sovereignty,

We will not be forgiven by the History,

Democracy will fall like the fall of Roman Years,

When the Shakespeare wrote with tears,

ET TU BRUTE, THEN FALLS THE CESAR”

Thank You,

Sanu Ranjan