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Socialist Lawyer issue 46

As this issue goes to press, legal aid practitioners are confronting the implementation of the first tranche of Legal Services Commission changes prompted by Lord Carter’s report. It is a gloomy time for lawyers committed to publicly-funded litigation and an even gloomier one for all those potential clients who will be unable to find expert publicly funded legal advice and representation in the future. As always, the government accuses lawyers of trying to line their own pockets – pretty rich coming from a government stuffed with lawyers from commercial practice. How often have Blair, Falconer or Goldsmith accepted a publicly-funded legal aid brief?

We’re sick of having to repeat that this is not about fat-cat lawyers but about welfare services being withdrawn from the poor and vulnerable in our society. Since the government can’t answer that point, it resorts to avoiding debate or mud-slinging as Laura Janes’ account of Vera Baird’s appearance at the Young Legal Aid Lawyers’ Question Time event makes clear. The next issue of Socialist Lawyer will focus on the expected and imminent implications of the changes in public funding.

This issue looks at terrorism and human rights, both domestically and internationally. New Labour described the introduction of the Human Rights Act in 1998 as “bringing rights home”. However, as Keir Starmer QC illustrates so graphically, a government’s genuine commitment to human rights is only really tested when it comes to difficult questions. A year after the implementation of the Human Rights Act 1998, the government failed the first test when it passed the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, allowing for indefinite detention, or internment, of nonnationals resident in the UK. Since then the government has faced a number of defeats in the Courts: indefinite detention and the use of torture evidence were ruled unlawful by the House of Lords and the system of control orders, and their punitive conditions, have been held to be incompatible with human rights. Notwithstanding these reverses, the government persists in breaching the rights protected under the Human Rights Act. Presently, foreign nationals, who have never been charged with any criminal offence in this country, are being deported or even returning voluntarily under pressure to countries where they are likely to face detention and/or torture. On the issue of balancing security with civil liberties and human rights, the government has failed woefully. Its response, yet again, has not been to re-consider its own practice but to attack the lawyers.

In Palestine, human rights lawyers are desperately needed. Hannah Rought Brooks, member of the Haldane Society executive, spent three months in the West Bank on behalf of the Bar Human Rights Committee. She describes daily and routine infringements of human rights: destruction of villages; military attacks on peaceful demonstrations; and checkpoints preventing freedom of movement. In the name of combating “terrorism” the Israeli army kills Palestinian civilians and lays waste to cars and buildings, only (as in the case Hannah describes) subsequently to release the suspected terrorists without charge. In addition, the Israeli government wilfully ignores UN resolutions and the International Court of Justice.

Lawyers in the Basque country are also familiar with repression of political parties, cultural associations and the media, all under the guise of combating “terrorism”. Basque prisoner Inaki de Juana served 19 years. Shortly after his release, he was sentenced to another 12 years for the crime of publishing two comment pieces, said to be “terrorist threats”. After a long hunger-strike, in which the World Medical Association, the European Association of Democratic Lawyers and the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture intervened, he has been repatriated to a hospital in the Basque country “for humanitarian reasons”.

Moazzam Begg knows exactly what it is like to be suspected of being an international terrorist and to be held, with charge or trial, by a foreign power. He was held captive for over three years at Guantanamo Bay and will speak to the Haldane Society on Thursday 24th May about his experiences there and the men still imprisoned unlawfully. Sadat Sayeed, who will speak with Moazzam, updates us on the depressing failure of the US judiciary to acknowledge the constitutional rights of the Guantanamo captives.

It would be ridiculous to suggest that human rights abuses by governments will be overcome solely by lawyers or by litigation. But lawyers standing up for unpopular causes can make a difference, as the litigation in both Britain and, to a lesser extent, the US shows. Where do those lawyers who take the unpopular, but necessary, human rights challenges come from? What lies behind cases such A & others v Secretary of State for the Home Office that challenged the detention and internment of foreign nationals without trial? In Britain, this and all the other test cases have been publicly-funded. Who knows what would have happened had there been no publicly-funded lawyers willing to represent so-called suspected terrorists? And, for every important human rights test case, there are thousands of cases that, in legal terms, might be considered mundane or straightforward, but involve the right to liberty, to freedom of expression and association, to respect for family, home, private life, and correspondence, and even the right to life itself.

Hundreds of publicly-funded lawyers make sure that, day in and day out, those facing criminal charges, the loss of their homes, the loss of their children or other arbitrary treatment by the state get the chance to have their say in Court, and have their human rights considered. Without public funding, there will be more miscarriages of justice, more arbitrary treatment, less chance for the individual to put forward his or her case, and fewer test cases. It feels late in the day but we hope the government will reconsider.

The Haldane Society is sad to note the passing of two highly respected legal activists. Jack Gaster was the Society’s Vice-President and lived a life fully engaged in political and legal struggles for justice. Gilly Mundy’s untimely death has left a gap in the lives of everyone who knew him. His tireless campaigning work for the Newham Monitoring Project, the Lawrence Family Campaign and INQUEST will not be forgotten.

Liz Davies, Chair of the Haldane Society