ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with different invocations of the 'rule of law': includes cases in which the 'rule of law' is presented as congruous or incongruous to conflict mediation; in the latter, the 'rule of law' represented by courts is sometimes explicitly avoided. The ways in which people relate to discourse of 'rule of law' represent particular senses of justice. The chapter also deals with other senses of justice that are based on more localized moral frameworks. It focuses on the gestures of concealing and revealing such moral frameworks in ordinary social action and talk and argue that the interplay between 'front stage' and 'back stage' recreates "judging publics". Shared vocabularies and registers and a shared platform of expression and audience define "judging publics". The chapter emphasizes the moments and gestures of concealing and revealing different normative registers. The situational use of normative registers points towards implicit understandings, and sometimes "communities of complicity", which can be crucially important for "judging publics".
