Rereading Kafka's The Trial: Responsibility, Reflection, and the Case of the Dutch Childcare Allowance Scandal

Abstract

As standard interpretation has it, Kafka's novel The Trial depicts how an innocent and defenceless individual is crushed by powerful and absurdly bureaucratic institutions. No wonder, therefore, that The Trial is often linked to the British Post Office Scandal, the Australian Robodebt Scheme, the Dutch Childcare Allowance Scandal and other such affairs that rendered many people helpless in their fights against flawed systems and disinterested governments. This paper explores the significance for judicial ethics and legal practice of an alternative interpretation of The Trial – and of Kafka's works more in general – that has been most compellingly proposed by Walter H. Sokel. An important conclusion will be that Sokel's alternative understanding of Kafka and the Kafkaesque yields even more important insights into the workings of modern law and government than the standard interpretation.