Thursday 15 January 2015

Judge Rinder; courtroom flags

I was flicking through TV channels on my day off and stopped on the UK's Independent Television (ITV) channel, as my interest was sparked by a pair of flags in a courtroom.
ITV's Judge Rinder is a British version of the US show, Judge Judy, where a judge presides over various disputes usually money related on TV.
I don't think Judge Rinder is in an official court, as to my knowledge filming in a UK courtroom is illegal.  I don't normally watch these sort of shows but the flags sparked my interest. It seems to have copied a lot from Judge Judy, for example the gavel (British Judges don't have gavels) and the flags behind the Judge:
I have never come across flags decorating a British courtroom before, so I expect the idea of flags here was copied from the Americans. The national device you normally find in a British courtroom is the Royal coat of arms. As this isn't an official courtroom it would be inappropriate to use the royal arms, so the national flag is a nice touch, but look at the flag on the Judge's left. In the USA the flag on the Judge's left is the state flag. I know in the UK it might be inappropriate to put an England, Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland flag etc so ITV made their own flag. It is the show's logo on a blue field. It is one of the worst flags I've seen, come on ITV you could make a better flag for the show, even if it was the Scale's of Justice symbol on a blue field, it would be better than the one  with text used.
Here is my idea for a decorative indoor flag for the show:
As it is a decorative indoor flag, I based it on the design of army regimental colours. It features the Scales of Justice logo behind the Judge, placed within a floral wreath, representing the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, with ITV's logo in each corner. The field of the flag is blue. All together I think this gives the flag a more "official" impression, and is certainly better than the logo flag.
Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

No comments:

Post a Comment