In the trial Pistorius was being cross-examined and several times he addressed the prosecutor as “My Lady”. The prosector is obviously a man. What’s the deal?
He’s addressing the judge. Whether this is South African court protocol, or he just doesn’t want to look at the prosecutor, I don’t know.
Ok. He was answering the prosecutor’s question, but the other day there was something about how he had to address the judge and not the audience, I guess it’s the way they roll over there.
I looked this upseveral days ago. He’s addressing the court, not the lawyers, as is custom in SA. And the judge is a woman.
Addressing the judge as “My Lord/My Lady” (depending on sex) is a holdover from higher court judges are addressed in England. Many Commonwealth countries have adopted it, though I think Australia & some Canadian provinces may have phased it out. I do think it’s interesting that South Africa has retained despite abolishing the monarchy over 50 yrs ago.
Unless I misheard, he has also referred to (but obviously not addressed) Reeva Steenkamp as “my lady.”
Do they also have the system where witnesses addresses the judge and not the lawyers or others?
Formally, you give your evidence to the court, embodied in the judge, even if you are giving it in response to questions put by counsel for one side or the other.
On the tactical level, witnesses who are likely to be aggressively cross-examined are sometimes encouraged to remember this, and to frame all their answers for the judge, to avoid getting involved in an angry verbal spat with the cross-examining counsel, in which the counsel will invariably come off the winner. It’s likely that Pistorius’ counsel has encouraged him to face the judge and address all his answers to her.
This is standard in England and in Ireland, and I’m slightly surprised to find that it may not be standard in the US. The basic idea here is that evidence is given to the court, and I would have thought that’s common to pretty well all trial systems.
It could be the same here in principle, but the testimony I’ve seen in a limited number of actual trials had witnesses addresses the attorneys directly. It may just be the same system without the formality. I’ve never seen a criminal trial with no jury as is the case in the Pistorius trial, so maybe it would be done the same way here in those circumstances.
I should say that witnesses very commonly do give their evidence in a fairly conversationational way, talking to counsel. They are only reminded to “address the court” if it gets too conversational, and the judge (or jury) can’t hear what is being said, or if there is some tactical reason for doing so. But experienced witnesses - expert witnesses, officials or professional whose duties often involve giving evidence, etc - are aware of the protocol and tend to observe it without being prompted.
So in England would it be standard to refer every single answer to the judge, as Pistorias is doing? I live in England, but we don’t televise court cases, so I have no way of knowing whether this is the way it works, but perhaps you do.
It sounds really bloody odd having Pistorias say “yes, milady” when asked questions by the male prosecutor. Sruely if that were common in England I’d have heard of it, so it wouldn’t seem as odd?
Going off at a tangent – the name “Oscar Pistorius” seems made for the “limerick-equivalent” verse form featured on the Dope, in the Cafe Society thread “Double Dactyls, the Higgledy Piggledy Poetry Thread”, initiated in 2003 and quite-recently resurrected (I’d do a link to it, if I possessed that skill). Most often, such verses are about a particular individual, whose name should fit the metre of, say,“Sergei Rachmaninov” or “President Jefferson”. Our boy Oscar’s name, would appear to have been specifically created for that purpose.
Humpety-stumpety
Oscar Pistorius
wasn’t quite certain of
who’s in the john.
So now he literally
and metaphorically
seems to be lacking a
leg to stand on.
(Higgledy-piggledy
thread-seeker vontsira
If you’ll permit me I’ll
Give you a link.
Hope that you’ll find it not
unsatisfactory
If you agree give a
smile and a 
)
Usually when a witness is giving evidence he doesn’t name the person he is speaking to. So, if asked, “Do you recall the night of 25 October”, he’ll just say “yes” (or “no”). In the unlikely event that he says “yes, Mr. Smith” (naming the barrister), they might let that go once or twice, but if he keeps it up then sooner or later they’ll say something like “address the court, please”.
Putting “my lady” (or whatever) in front of every single answer would certainly be unusual. My guess is that Pistorius has had it drilled into him by his own team. He’s rude, volatile and has a foul temper, characteristics that the prosecution would probably quite like to bring out in a dramatic form by having him explode at counsel. Hence, they are needling him. And focussing on the fact that he’s speaking to the judge is a technique his team have given him to help him avoid being drawn into that exchange.