Socialist Lawer No.61 Editorial

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Since the last issue, The Haldane Society has organised one of its most successfulconferences in its history: Defending Human Rights Defenders held jointly with Amnesty International and European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights. 150 people heard from human rights defenders from Belarus, Chechnya, Dagestan, Colombia, Palestine, the Philippines and Turkey. This issue contains a short report and pictures can be viewed on our website. A longer report will be available in the autumn.

Our comrades from overseas are an inspiration to us. Lawyers, trade unionists, journalists and even judges put their lives at risk by standing up for human rights. We were sad that Aleh Volchek, a lawyer in Belarus, was unable to join us because he had been detained a month before the conference and his passport had been confiscated. In the Philippines, the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers is challenging impunity by bringing a private prosecution against retired Army Maj. Gen.Jovito Palparan, accusing him of complicity in disappearances. The retired General is evading the court process. In Turkey, lawyers representing Kurdish or left-wing prisoners are frequently arrested. Perhaps the most striking observation was from the Palestinian comrades: since they came from East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza, our invitation to visit London meant that the three of them could meet each other. In Palestine, Israel prevents travel between those areas. In Colombia, several leading members of the National Movement for the Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) have been detained by the State, and, when they eventually face a trial, are at risk of false accusations.

We could only invite representatives from a few countries and are conscious that human rights defenders are at risk in many countries. In this issue, Brian Richardson describes political persecution in Zimbabwe: the prosecution of members of the Movement for Democratic Change.

The Haldane Society was pleased to provide a platform to bring some of those well-known and less well-known struggles together. We are committed to providing practical solidarity to our comrades, with calls for urgent action, statements in support and denunciations of repressive measures. We will work towards holding future conferences and facilitating electronic networks and communication. The issue of impunity was a recurrent theme: how to hold governments, and corporations, responsible for their crimes by due process of law.

The passing of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, despite the record number of Government defeats in the House of Lords, means that the changes to legal aid come into force next April. The lobbying campaign against LASPO was one of the most impressive and effective I have ever seen and, crucially, turned the issue from lawyers' interests, as claimed by the Government, to an issue about welfare rights and access to justice.

How can we now stop the decimation of legal aid, the NHS, welfare benefits and the other pillars of the welfare state? Clever lawyering is one way forward. There are complex provisions in the Act permitting the Lord Chancellor to increase the scope of legal aid. But our interests, and those of the public, are identical to publicsector workers. Legal aid lawyers are effectively public-sector workers employed in the private sector. As the minimum salary for trainee solicitors is outrageously abolished, the profession will become more and more distant from the public we serve.

Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), spoke with Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, and John Hendy QC at a meeting jointly organised with the Institute for Employment Rights. Mark is also interviewed in this magazine. He tells us that his members' fight to defend their pension rights is certainly an industrial dispute but it's also ‘clearly a political dispute’. We will be joining the TUC and trade unions on their march for ‘A future that works’ on 20th October 2012. Watch out for The Haldane Society banner.

We are very sad to report the death of Lord Bill Wedderburn, pre-eminent labour and commercial lawyer of his generation and a committed Vice-President of The HaldaneSociety. His life will be remembered at a memorial service on Tuesday 3rd July 2012, 6pm at the London School of Economics and the Haldane Society will be in attendance. We send our condolences to his family and comrades.

Liz Davies, chair of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

Haldane 2012-13 Human Rights Lecture Series

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Each year the Haldane Society arranges its popular Human Rights Lecture Series, on a diverse range of subjects, with important speakers from across the legal landscape.

All of the events in the 2012-13 series take place at The College of Law on Store Street, London, and begin at 6.30pm.  Lectures last about an hour and a half to two hours.

All lectures are free. CPD available for practitioners, £10.

11 October 2012: David Renton & Dave Smith

“Struck Out: Why employment tribunals fail workers and what can be done”

David Renton (barrister) and Dave Smith (Blacklist Support Group) will speak on the why employment workers, and how workers can respond through collective action outside the legal system.

15 November 2012: Michael Mansfield (followed by AGM)

“Palestine, Putney and Planet”

Michael Mansfield will be speaking on a diverse range of subjects including Palestine, the Putney Debates from the Civil War, and eco-cide. 

Haldane Society AGM

The lecture will be followed by Haldane's AGM, open to all members of the Society.

13 December 2012: Owen Jones & Lois Austin (PCS)

“The Injustice of Privatisation”

Owen Jones (author of Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class) and a comrade from the PCS trade union will be speaking on the subject of privatisation, particularly as it affects the legal system.

17 January 2013: Michael Chessum (NUS/NCAFC) & Adam Gearey (Birkbeck School of Law)

“Higher Education for Sale”

Michael Chessum and Adam Gearey will be speaking on the privatisation of higher education.

21 February 2013: Tessa Gregory (Public Interest Lawyers) & Andy Greene (Disabled People Against the Cuts)

“Back to Work Schemes, ATOS, Forced Labour: the Fight in the Courts”

We will hear from a solicitor from Public Interest Lawyers and one of their clients about the government's controversial back to work schemes, their interrelationships with the concept of forced labour, and the human rights aspect of this subject.

14 March 2013: Jamila Duncan-Bosu (solicitor Anti-Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit) & Kate Roberts, (community advocate Kalayaan and campaigner for domestic migrant workers)

“Trafficking: Law and Politics”

We will hear from speakers involved in the fight against human-trafficking.

Joint Seminar with CAMPACC and CASE

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21 November 2012: Justice and Security Bill: Covering up State Crimes

Wednesday 21 November 6.30-8.30pm at Garden Court Chambers, 57-60 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A

Chair:
Louise Christian, civil liberties and human rights lawyer; Vice-President of The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers.

Speakers:
Dinah Rose QC, Blackstone Chambers, who specialises in human rights and public law
Richard Norton-Taylor, journalist and writer on defence and security, The Guardian
Clare Algar, Executive Director, Reprieve

Open justice is a centuries-old principle of British law. The right to a fair trial is a feature of the common law and is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. These values of fairness and transparency are now under threat in the Justice and Security Bill, which will introduce closed courts and secret evidence for any case which the government says relates to ‘national security’.  Such restrictions threaten the very fabric of the civil legal system.

With increasing allegations of British government collusion in torture abroad over the past decade, the government has gone to great lengths to withhold evidence relating to such claims. Under the guise of growing ‘national security’ concerns in an increasingly global context, the government has also introduced a number of measures to protect the interests of the executive and its agencies.

Applied at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission since 1997, closed courts have failed to ensure fairness and proportionality in proceedings, evidenced by the sizeable related case law. 

So. why extend ‘secret evidence’? Who stands to gain? If this Bill is enacted, where will it leave the legal system and the judiciary?

For background information: The Justice and Security Bill: An Affront to Open Justice by Aisha Maniar http://onesmallwindow.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/justice-and-security-bill-an-affront-to-open-justice/ 

All Welcome.  For further information contact:
Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)
Web: www.campacc.org.uk,
Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk
Tel.: 020 7586 5892

Lord Bill Wedderburn

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The Haldane Society is sad to announce the death of our Vice-President, Lord Bill Wedderburn, QC. Bill Wedderburn was an eminent labour lawyer, whose books included The Worker and the Law and other publications pioneering the concept of workers' rights. He worked at the University of Cambridge and was Cassell Professor of Commercial Law at the London School of Economics. He was appointed a life peer in 1977. The name Baron Wedderburn of Charlton reflected his football allegiance. He was a Distinguished Patron of the British Humanist Society. He was a committed supporter of the Haldane Society and, less than two years ago, appeared with Jim Mortimer and John Hendy QC "in conversation", jointly organised with the Institute for Employment Rights and held at the TUC. We appreciated the physical effort he made to join us then and the mental acerbity and wit that had not diminished. Our thoughts are with his family and his friends.

Obituary in Guardian, Monday 12th March

National Lawyers' Guild (US) calls on U.S. to end arm sales to Bahrain, members abused in anti-democracy crackdown

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Just one day after announcing their presence in Bahrain as human rights observers, National Lawyers Guild (NLG) members Huwaida Arraf and Radhika Sainath were arrested at a protest in the capital city Manama and deported back to the United States. Their mission came amid renewed street protests on the one year anniversary of the country's Arab Spring uprising. Their ordeal illustrates the U.S.-backed monarchy's harsh response to its people's continued calls for democracy.

Ms. Sainath, who works as a civil rights attorney in New York, said, "Given the Bahraini regime's treatment of American lawyers one can only imagine the torture and human rights abuses Bahraini democracy activists routinely face - and why the regime is trying to hide it."
Bahraini police arrested Ms. Sainath and Ms. Arraf February 11 near the Pearl Roundabout, the site of last year's Manama protests which were modeled after the revolutionary gatherings in Egypt's Tahrir Square. Authorities confiscated the pair's phones and camera equipment, and deported them the following morning, forcing them to endure the seven-hour flight to London with their hands cuffed behind their backs. During the flight, security officers hit Ms. Sainath on the head three times and told her that if she wanted to go the bathroom she "could go to the bathroom on herself."
"The treatment our members suffered solely for documenting human rights abuse is contemptible and it demands further investigation," said NLG Executive Director Heidi Boghosian. "Further, we call on the U.S. government to take immediate steps to protect the rights of all Bahrainis by suspending all arms sales to the Bahraini government."
The two women traveled to the country as part of the Witness Bahrain initiative, heeding a call by Bahraini democracy activists for international observers. Six more Witness Bahrain activists now face deportation after their arrests earlier today.
Now in its 75th year, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

www.nlg.org

Contact:
Nathan Tempey,
Communications Coordinator
communications@nlg.org
(212) 679-5100, ext. 15
New York

Haldane Statement of Solidarity with MOVICE (Movement for Victims of State Crimes, Colombia)

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We are writing from the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, the British organisation of lawyers, academics students, legal workers, trade union and labour affiliates, to express our support and solidarity with the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), a coalition of more than 200 Colombian human rights organisations, lawyers' associations and trade unions.

We understand that since the organisation's creation in 2005, MOVICE leaders and the members of its component organisations have been the continuous target of human rights abuses, including assassinations, death threats, false accusations, fabricated judicial cases and unjust imprisonment.

We also recognise that in the face of these intimidations, MOVICE members continue to carry out invaluable work documenting human rights abuses, supporting and defending the rights of victims, and speaking out against those who perpetrate the violations. Their work is integral to the defence and advancement of human rights in Colombia.
It appears that many of these abuses form part of a smear campaign aimed at delegitimising and debilitating their work. Furthermore, we understand that during the first year of President Santos' administration, from August 2010-July 2011 there was a 44% increase in the abuses against MOVICE members, making it more dangerous to carry out their work on the ground.

We have for several years worked closely with the UK NGO, Justice for Colombia and in particular supported their campaign for the release of political prisoners. We specifically campaigned for the release of Carmelo Agamez, former political prisoner and leader of MOVICE Sucre, and we are currently campaigning for the release of imprisoned MOVICE leader David Rabelo.

In response to the increasing threats, and in recognition of the importance of its members work, we have decided to adopt a wider campaign in solidarity with MOVICE, through which we hope to provide increased support for MOVICE members, according to the organisation's demands and priorities. Specifically, by raising awareness within our membership and through our affiliations to the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (EALDH) and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and by calling on the Colombian authorities to fulfil MOVICE requests.

Statement of Solidarity with NUPL Action against Major General Jovito Palparan

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The Haldane Society supports the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers' actions against Maj Gen Jovito Palparan.

The arrest warrant against Gen. Palparan and three other military personnel was issued by the Malolos Regional Trial Court on December 19, 2011. After a month-long manhunt by government law enforcement agencies and after a P1-million bounty has been put up for his capture, the actual whereabouts of the retired general are yet to be known. Palparan's co-accused and sidekick M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario is also still at large.

The victims and families have been waiting for justice for the longest time. There are prevalent doubts from the victims and their families whether the Pnoy administration itself has in fact made any serious, systematic and concrete effort to initiate the effective and genuine investigation and prosecution of human rights violators of the past and the present. "We hope several other victims will, on their own, persist to throw the book at Gen. Palparan and his kind for the most horrific rights violations," said Liz Davies, Chair of the Haldane Society.

The NUPL is the private prosecutor in the case of Kidnapping and Serious Illegal Detention against Gen. Palparan and his co-accused , involving the disappearance of UP students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan. The NUPL is also the counsel of human rights victims Raymond Manalo, Oscar Leuterio, Melissa Roxas, Ericson Acosta, and the Morong 43 health workers, among others.

Liz Davies
Chair Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers