Socialist Lawyer is the magazine of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, published three to four times a year. It is available free to Haldane members and affiliated organisations, and for £5 a copy to libraries and at Haldane events (when held in person).
The editors are Joseph Maggs, Gabriel Frankel and Darryl Hutcheon. Please email socialistlawyer@haldane.org if you are interested in contributing - whether you have an article, just an idea, or are looking for an idea! We welcome features, short articles, news and case reports, and reviews. We want to know what you’ve been researching, reading, listening to, watching, and thinking about. Check out previous editions (below) for an idea of what we’re about.
See below archived copies of the magazine (except the most recent one, which for rights reasons we can’t put up here - we will upload it whenever the next one comes out). They are also available at https://www.jstor.org/journal/socialistlawyer.
Grenfell: why must we wait so long for justice?
Punishing benefits claimants
Defending the right to protest
Prison overcrowding
News, Reviews & More
Gaza
Rwanda and the courts
The Post Office Scandal
Western Sahara
News, Reviews & More
The Good Friday Agreement
Coronation protests
Sudan
Fighting gentrification
News, Reviews & More
Lawyers are responsible
The anti-strike laws
Attacks on Legal Aid
Edenfield
News, Reviews & More
Criminal barristers strike
The death of Christ Kaba
The IRR after 50 years
News & Reviews
Socialism and land
Striking for Legal Aid
The Stansted 15
Movement lawyering for climate justice
News & Reviews
Russia’s war on Ukraine
Sisters Uncut: one year on from the Sarah Everard vigil
The Nationality & Borders Bill: legislating violence
Cressida Dick: reformism & representation politics
Mother & baby institutions in Northern Ireland
Reviews & more.
Covid: the government’s dismal failure
Humanitarians against the Greek Government
A tribute to Georgia Lassoff
COP26 report
Lawyers 10 years after the Arab Spring
Reviews & more.
Victory for the Stansted 15
Reclaiming the night
The Shrewsbury pickets
60 years of the single convention on narcotic drugs
The misuse of drugs act: 50 years of failure
& more.
Socialist Lawyer 86 [no link]
Hostile Environments conference: climate and migrant justice
Yarl’s Wood: history of resistance
Unlawful pushbacks
50 years of the North Kensington Law Centre
& more
The EU and Libya
Police in lockdown
Black Lives Matter
Pregnant women in prison
Coronavirus credit crunch
& more
System change for climate justice
Julian Assange
Dispatches from Lebanon
Defending Wet’suwet’en territory from fossil capital in Canada
Intentional homelessness
& more
United Friends & Families’ Campaign
How Labour councillors fail us
Grenfell
UK arms supplied to Yemen
30 years of the Children Act 1989
Mass surveillance and workers’ rights
Asbestos litigation
& more
Criminalised for fighting Daesh
The future of UK labour law
Legal Aid and the NHS
The politics of ‘Barrister Twitter’
News & reviews
Keep the Stansted 15 free
Marginalisation & stigma in social housing
The role of the advice centre (Harley Dean)
Hostile environment for welfare recipients
Dishonesty, power structures & the law
News & reviews
Orgreave: truth & justice
Bolsonaro: Trump of the Tropics
Tax avoidance & homelessness policy
Germany: occupational bans on left-wingers
Banks, the law, money & moraility
& more
Vigil for legal aid
The roots of Manchester Law Centre
Jonathan Sumption, Keith Joseph, Thatcher & Grenfell
Videoconferencing: cheap justice
Moira 35 trial
Cuban embargo & human rights
The punitive council tax arrears regime
& more
Original research into the law centre movement
30 years of legal aid cuts
Radical history of North Kensington Law Centre
Legal aid in south London
Legal aid and the capitalist state
Law centres surviving in the West Midlands
& more
Lesvos: the Moira 35
Grenfell: access to justice & Zita Holbourne poem
Criminalising aid to migrants
Jobstown: not guilty!
Social class-based sentencing
History: John Thelwall & Thomas Erskine
Unfairness among immigration judges
2017 general election
Stansted 15 - very early (pre-trial) article
Pupillage, depression and mental health
Resisting immigration enforcement (East Street 3)
Eyewitness: the West Bank
Squatters rights & legal movement theory
& more
Black Lives Matter
Calais Jungle
Navi Pillay interview
Southern Poverty Law Centre
Marx & legal aid work
Council tax debt
Jobstown protests
& more
May: look at her record
Fast food poisons workplace justice
Colombia 2016: challenges ahead on the road to peace
Anti Raids Network poster
Ricky Tomlinson interview
Labour Party conference
Squatting in Scotland
& more
Shut it Down - Yarl's Wood
Calais Legal Shelter
Hillsborough
Non-state torture
Orgreave
The unintended consequences of the leftist case of Brexit
The state and women's bodies
& more
Reports from Women Fighting Back: International and Legal Perspectives
Yes We Can: Justice Alliance rally against cuts
News & reviews
Stop the Trade Union Bill
Investor-state dispute mechanisms
Landlords as immigration officials
Free speech in India today
News & reviews
Read the full edition of Socialist Lawyer 70 here.
What Remains: Photos from the last days of the war in Gaza in 2014 by Eduardo Soteras Jalil
Black and dangerous? Read the full edition of Socialist Lawyer 68 here.
Read the full edition of Socialist Lawyer 67 here.
Read the full edition of Socialist Lawyer 66 here.
Justice in the balance.
Socialist Lawyer 64 focuses on the continuing campaign to save legal aid which has been gathering momentum throughout 2013. As the front cover depicts, solicitors and barristers have staged demonstrations in the face of the further round of cuts proposed to both criminal and civil legal aid. This issue features analysis of the consequences that will result from the proposed cuts and offers a rallying call to save legal aid as an essential part of the welfare state. There are also articles in this issue looking at: the fall-out already being felt by the most vulnerable in society from cuts to benefits; the trial of Alfie Meadows; and the attempts in Guatemala to bring the former dictator Ríos Montt to justice.
‘Socialist Lawyer 63 features analysis by Louise Christian of the Government’s proposals for secret courts, a look at new laws on squatting from the Advisory Service for Squatters, reports on Syria and Colombia, an interview with the leader of National Union of Teachers, Christine Blower, Michael Mansfield’s call for the protection of persecuted lawyers around the world as part of the ‘Day of the Endangered Lawyer’, and much more.’
In this issue of Socialist Lawyer (No 62) published by the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, President Mike Mansfield writes on the parallels between the Report of the Independent Panel on Hillsborough and the Saville Report into Bloody Sunday. Mike Mansfield represented some of the families in both inquiries.
Mansfield praises the Independent Panel on Hillsborough for the conduct of the investigation. There were “no leaks official or unofficial. No Partiality. Families first”. It was “a perfect prototype or model for the future” and “truth in action rarely observed in other judicial processes, however good the intentions”.
The 61st edition of Socialist Lawyer goes to the printers as austerity measures and cuts to public spending continue to bite in the UK and across the continent. Challenges to those in favour of austerity are being made. In this edition PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka gives an interview in which he discusses his views on austerity and the challenges ahead for the public sector. There is analysis of the friction between the Greek constitution and austerity. We also look back at the incredible life of the eminent socialist lawyer and Haldane vice-president Lord Wedderburn. Turner prize winner Jeremy Deller has kindly donated a piece of his artwork which is but one feature of an edition that looks at issues including legal aid, the Olympics, school exclusions and much more.
Socialist Lawyer celebrates its very own diamond jubilee with this the 60th edition of the magazine. In anticipation of the upcoming Defending Human Rights Defenders conference on 24th February 2012 this edition is full of reports of those working in defence of human rights in the UK and across the globe.
There are accounts from East Jerusalem to Mexico. The regular column from Young Legal Aid Lawyers provides a reminder that the struggle to save legal aid continues as the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill takes its passage through Parliament. The South African lawyer and peace facilitator Brian Currin provides his analysis of the ceasefire announced by Eta in October 2011.
Also featured is artwork by the artist Ruth Ewan whose work brings political activism both into the gallery and out into the public space.
In this issue we cast a considered look back at the tempestuous events of August 2011. Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder and director of Kids Company, offers her insight into the root causes of the riots. Connor Johnston of Young Legal Aid Lawyers gives his take on these events from what he witnessed in Hackney.
The riots are also an issue discussed with Len McCluskey, the new Unite General Secretary, in one of two engaging interviews in this edition. Geoffrey Bindman is our other interviewee. He will be the key guest speaker at the next of The Haldane Society's upcoming Autumn lectures on 8th November 2011.
Within the print issue there is analysis of recent legal developments in Colombia, the educational benefits of law clinics at British universities, and the judgments handed down by the European Court of Human rights in the cases of Al-Skeini and Al-Jedda.
Last but not least, the late, great Haldane Vice-President Kader Asmal is remembered for his career as a radical lawyer, academic and one of the architects of post-apartheid South Africa.
We call on lawyers to support the possible public sector strikes on 30 June. Kat Craig, Anna Morris and Russell Fraser report on their fact-finding delegation to Tunisia, shortly after the revolution. Rights of Women on why cuts to legal aid will hit women hardest. “Ricin: the inside story of the terror plot that never was”, including an account by the jury's foreman, is reviewed.
In the print issue, the current legal status of kettling is analysed along with our usual features: Young Legal Aid Lawyers column, news and reviews
In this issue our editorial condemns the cuts to tuition fees, legal aid and other public services. We call on lawyers and law students to join the TUC Day of Action to Stop the Cuts on Saturday 26 March. Professor Conor Gearty looks at the Coalition government's record on civil liberties. The Lib Dems promised during the general election to "scrap controls", to reduce the maximum pre-charge detention in terrorist cases from 28 days to 14 days, and to allow intercept evidence in criminal trials becuase "the best way to combat terrorism" was "to prosecute terrorists". In government, they have been tamed by the Tories and possibly by the security services.
Connor Johnston, from Young Legal Aid Lawyers, analyses the Green Paper on Legal Aid and reminds us that the availability of legal aid is a necessary part for the rule of law. "There can be no semblance of equality before the law when only the rich can defend their rights". We also report on an international lawyers' delegation to Colombia, on trade unionists blacklisted and victimised by their employers and on the UN Investigation into who assassinated Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri.
Socialist Lawyer No 56 is packed with informative articles. We are stepping our campaign to save legal aid, along with other public services.Tony Gifford QC analyses the Saville Inquiry report into Bloody Sunday and concloudes "it was worth every pound and day spent on it". But did it bring justice for the victims and their families?
Richard Harvey discusses the wrongful conviction of the "Tokyo Two", Greenpeace anti-whaling activists in Japan. Marina Sergides and Marcela Navarrette interview Frances Webber, Haldane Society Vice-President and Peter Kandler, founder of North Kensington Law Centre the very first law centre to be established, reflects on 40 years of the law centre movement.
Socialist Lawyer No 55 asks why no justice in Gaza? Haldane President Mike Mansfield QC reports on the deliberations of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and its call for universal jurisdiction to be applied. Marina Sergides explains the concept and why members of Israel's government can face prosecution in Britain for war crimes. Socialist Lawyer also interviews our new Vice-President, John Hendy QC, who believes that calling himself a left-wing barrister is an "absurdity". And Haldane Vice-Chair Anna Morris explains the legal arguments that led to a jury acquitting Claire Finch of brothel-keeping, in a victory for the health and safety of sex workers.
Socialist Lawyer No 54 is on the theme of climate change and environmental struggle. The articles excerpted on the web are an analysis of the failure of the Copenhagan summit, by Polly Higgins, barrister, and Richard Harvey on “climate change in the courtroom”. Other articles, available in the magazine and not yet on the website, include James Thornton on the threat of legal costs deterring environmental litigation, a discussion of the Sierra Leone War Crimes Tribunal and analysis by Professor Keith Ewing of the BA-Unite litigation.
The Right to Self-Determination
Sixty years of legal aid: has it a future?
Human rights under attack: Philippines & Colombia
Blair Peack: it's taken three decades: Have we got the truth?
Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Miners' Strike 1984-85
Justice for Jean Charles?
Killing fields of Gaza
Stockwell inquest verdict - Harriet Wistrich
Israel's war criminals - Daniel Machover & Adri Nieuwhof
Eye-witness on the West Bank- from our correspondent
Knife crime
Inquest victories
Asylum support
Cuba's 50th
Socialist Lawyer celebrates our fiftieth edition
'Counter-terror' Bill assault on civil liberties
What will it mean for inquests? - Helen Shaw
Peace and multi-culturalism - Kader Asmal
Turkey, the Kurds and human rights
Do children in care have rights?
Modern Day Slavery: The Horror of Human Trafficking - Judith Farbey
Imran Khan Interview - Sultana Tafada
Miami Five Trial - Steve Cottingham
Valentina Telychenko Interview - Simon Pirani
The battle for Legal Aid
Israel & the Courts - Daniel Machover & Kate Maynard
Moazzam Begg speaks at Haldane lecture
BAE, SFO and the Saudis - Jamie Beagent
Turkish Lawyers Take Stand - Azam Zia
Whose terror? Whose freedom? - Hannah Rought Brooks
Human Rights and 'Terrorism' - Keir Starmer QC
'Terrorism': Flag of Convenience - Bill Bowring
Muslims: Absorption or Exodus? - Fahad Ansari
The Legal Struggles for Women Today - Holly Pelham
Prison crisis: Michael Mansfield, Piers Mostyn & Laura Janes on 'Gulag Britain'
Tony Benn: The law, society and a new world order
Yasmin Khan: Jean Charles De Menezes
Sadat Sayeed: Guantanamo: Work Behind The Scenes
Bill Bowring: Do 'Terror Suspects' Have Rights?
Foreign Criminals: Donald? Dubya?
Frances Webber & Alex Gask Go Beneath the Scare Stories
Liz Davies on the Respect Agenda
Richard Harvey on Shoot to Kill
Sultana Tafadar: Forest Gate
Guantanamo: Close it down by Clive Stafford-Smith
Helena Kennedy on 'The rights of women'
Michael Finucane: 'Why no public inquiry of my father's murder?'
Phil Shiner, Conor Gearty. Israeli Wall, Section 9
Uganda: time for justice
Exclusive interview with Liberty's Shami Chakrabarti
Michael Mansfield QC, Liz Davies, Louise Christian and Helen Shaw on the Anti-Terror Laws
John Hendy QC on the Trade Union Bill
New term: new ideas needed
What we want from the new government
Clive Stafford-Smith on the Fight to Free Prisoners at Guantanamo
Forum: What is the Role of the Left-Wing Lawyer
Lennox S Hinds on the USA after Bush re-election
We talk to Hotel Rwanda film director Terry George
Paul Foot, a Tribute
Bush & the US: 'Elephants, the Perfect Storm and the New Covenant'
Eyewitness in Jerusalem
ASBOS: 'Cumbersome, Draconian and Fracical'
"Let Freedom Reign"
Barbarity and Human Rights in Iraq
Asylum: 'Another Blunkett Blunder'
Putin's election
Vanunu Released
'Culling' solicitors in London
This edition of Socialist Lawyer is missing. If you have a copy then we would appreciate the opportunity to copy it and return it to you, or event to add it to the Haldane Archive, held at the LSE library. If you can assist us please contact socialistlawyer@haldane.org.
Iraq: war and occupation
Rule of law or rule by power?
Phil Shiner asks: can there be accountaibility for an illegal war?
Louise Christian on Guantanamo Bay
INQUEST
Paul Troop: the Israeli wall
Asylum special - How did it come to this?
Iranian Kurdish asylum seeker Abas Amini, 33, sewed up his eyes, mouth and ears and went on hunger strike to protest against the Home Office's judicial review of his deportation case. He fled to Britain from Iran two years ago, after imprisonment and torture...
Why we should oppose the war by Mike Mansfield
Freedom for Palestine
Asylum Act injustice
Mental Health
A Charter for Workers' Rights
John Platts-Mills 1906-2001: A life of muck, silk and socialism
Responding to 11th September
New anti-terrorism Act
Invading Iraq
Palestine
International Criminal Court
Women in the Law
Justice for All
Columbia
Gurkhas
Exclusive: Two new poems from Benjamin Zephaniah
Michael Mansfield on trial by jury
Unionising Law Firms
The USA, the 'Rule of Law' and Cuba
Terrorism in the UK
Torture in Turkey
Hillsborough Trial 2000
Public Inquiries
This edition of Socialist Lawyer is missing. If you have a copy then we would appreciate the opportunity to copy it and return it to you, or event to add it to the Haldane Archive, held at the LSE library. If you can assist us please contact socialistlawyer@haldane.org.
The jury's out: Has New Labour lost the plot?
Defend the right to trial by jury, by Michael Mansfield
Malaysia
Corruption of Justice
Personality Disorder
Ocalan
Pinochet Round Two
Labour Party by Liz Davies
Pinochet: No hiding place
Does the Blair government care about human rights?
International Criminal Court: Triumph of civil society?
Not Fair Enough: Fairness at Work White Paper
Work on Death Row
Rape Survivors on Trial
Legal Aid special... which way ahead?
The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry
Cyprus
Professor Griffith: A Bill of Rights?
Northern Ireland
This edition of Socialist Lawyer is missing. If you have a copy then we would appreciate the opportunity to copy it and return it to you, or even to add it to the Haldane Archive, held at the LSE library. If you can assist us please contact socialistlawyer@haldane.org.
Law and Democracy
Haldane Society goes to South Africa
Kader Asmal on radical legal change in the new South Africa
Bosnian war crimes tirbunals
IADL Congress report
Refugees and national security
Transforming UK labour law
On the left there are those who are still willing to speak the coded and sometimes the open language of homophobia, in the belief that their prejudice will be tolerated like no other. "Ordinary people don't want to know", they say - presumably "ordinary people" like them, rather than the ordinary sexual minorities.
Socialists should make no compromise with bigotry or those who practise it. An attack on one of us is an attack on us all.
This edition of Socialist Lawyer is missing. If you have a copy then we would appreciate the opportunity to copy it and return it to you, or even to add it to the Haldane Archive, held at the LSE library. If you can assist us please contact socialistlawyer@haldane.org.
Justice 2000 Campaign Launch
Insiders' Guide to the South African Constitutional Court
Labour's new legal policy - interview with Paul Boateng MP
Haldane response
New Labour and access to justice
This edition of Socialist Lawyer is missing. If you have a copy then we would appreciate the opportunity to copy it and return it to you, or even to add it to the Haldane Archive, held at the LSE library. If you can assist us please contact socialistlawyer@haldane.org.
This edition of Socialist Lawyer is missing. If you have a copy then we would appreciate the opportunity to copy it and return it to you, or even to add it to the Haldane Archive, held at the LSE library. If you can assist us please contact socialistlawyer@haldane.org.
Happy Families? Back to basics in the year of the family - Elizabeth Woodcraft
Arthur Scargill - The miners and the judiciary
Clare Short - Equality in party politics
New World Order - Can Human Rights Fill the Gap? - Bill Bowring
Mike Mansfield - Runciman: rights at risk
Damian Brown - Human rights & the ILO
Northern Ireland - lawyers under pressure by Jane Winter
Tony Benn on Constitutional Reform
Cuts in Legal Aid by Roger Smith
The UN: Grounds for Intervention by Miranda Kazantis
Asylum Law - a lost opportunity for reform? Jane Coker
Geoffrey Bindman on Livel Reform
The Ashworth Inquiry - Ian Bynoe
Turkish Kurds - Louise Christian
The Death Penalty in the USA: The ultimate human rights violation
Contempt of Court: Kenneth Baker makes legal history
Geoffrey Bindman: Five more Tory years
Michael Mansfield QC defends his criminal justice proposals
Criminal Justice Issue
Chris Mullin MP: The Age of Enlightenment
Dr Richard Vogler & Judge Marcel Lemonde: French Lessons for Runciman
News, Features, Reviews
Russia - Behind the Coup
Legal Training - Perpetuating the Stereotype
Return to Oscar Wilde - Peter Tatchell on Anti-Gay Laws
The Kurdish People - No Safe Haven in International Law
Casement Park - A Community on Trial
Mad, Bad or Dangerous - Women in Special Hospitals
Tony Benn - Conscience law and social progress
The Great Gulf in International Law
The McKenzie Rejected - a Fairweather Friend?
Global Warming to Environmental Law
Single Europe, Double Standards?
Child Welfare - Who Cares?
Stephen Sedley QC on the Judge's Role in Public Law
A Revolution in Soviet Law?
The Union Struggle in South Africa
The Victims of FBI Frame Ups
Kader Asmal on Human Rights in Northern Ireland: Britain's Responsibilities
Can the Law Turn Green? by Philippe Sands
Greville Janner QC MP on Nazi War Criminals
The Social Fund in Practice by Mark Rowland
Piers Mostyn on the Guildford Four
Book Reviews and News
Geoffrey Bindman on Lawyers under Pressure in Northern Ireland
Fenella Morris on Electronic Tagging
The Export of Military Force by Nick Blake
Robin Oppenheim on the Unions and the Law
Embryology and Legislation by Bethan Harris and Clare Wade
Book Reviews and News
The Haldane's Response to the Green Paper
John Hendy QC on Conflict in Pietermaritzburg
Another Swipe at Local Democracy by Gavin Millar
Kilary Kitchen on The Culture of Secrecy
Conscription in South Africa by Roger Field
Book Reviews, Letters and News
Albie Sachs on a Bill of Rights for South Africa
The Housing Act 1988
Reminiscences of a Radical Lawyer - John Platts-Mills QC
Louise Christian on the Police Complaints Authority
Helena Kennedy on the Chilean Plebiscite
Book Reviews, Letters and News
Louis Blom-Cooper QC on the Death Penalty in the US
Amnesty International and Britain
Palestinians Under Occupation - The Uprising
The Quest for Justice at the Polls
Black Mask is Back
Book Reviews, Letters and News
The Birmingham Six Appeal by Nick Blake
Tory Hypocrisy and the Unions by Marina Wheeler
Lean Times Ahead: The Social Fund in Perspective by Richard Drabble
Tony Gifford QC on Justice in Mozambique
Domestic Violence by Sally Parsloe
Strip Searching by Nina Hutchinson
Book Reviews and News
AIDS: The Legal Issues
A regressive Act - The David Alton Bill
Tony Gifford QC on Chile's Constitutional Fraud
Gay Rights Matter by David Geer
A Licence to Hate: Incitement to Racial Hatred by J Dexter Dias
The Poll Tax: No Representation Without Taxation? by Bill Bowring
Book Reviews and News
Legal Services - The Left Divided?
The Forgotten 10 Million: The Future of Community Care for Elderly People
Policing the Picket Outside South Africa House
Beyond Collective Bargaining
Owen Davies on extradition
Back to the 1850s: A Free Market in Housing
Book Reviews and News
Stephen Sedley on Judicial Review
Nick Blake on the UK and Refugees
Employment Discrimination in Northern Ireland by Paddy O'Connor
Roundtable on Local Authority's Powers and Tenants' Rights
Peter Thornton on the Public Order Act
Haldane News Reviews and Letters
Tribute to Owen Parson
Legal Services
Labour Party Conference
Conference on the Role of the Radical Lawyer: From Theory to Practice
Lawyers visit to the Hague by Kuttan Menon
Labour Laws with a Labour Government by John Hendy
Jureis: A balanced Tirbunal: The Peremptory Challenge by Nicholas Paul
Pritt Memorial Lecture: Politics and Justice: Can the Legal System be Reformed by Tony Gifford QC
