SL72_cover_pages.qxp_FINAL 14/02/2016 14:40 Page 1 SocialistLawyer Magazine of the HaldaneSociety of Socialist Lawyers Number 72 February2016£3

Women fightingback: international and legal perspectives

‘Radical, working class, anti-racist, anti-colonial feminism’ Angela Davis SL72_pp2-3_contents&editorial.qxp_print 14/02/2016 14:09 Page 2

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

PO Box 64195, London WC1A 9FD www.haldane.org The Haldane Society was founded in 1930. It provides a forum for the

discussion and analysis of law and the legal reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: system, both nationally and internationally, from a socialist perspective. It holds frequent public meetings and conducts educational programmes.The Haldane Society is independent of any political party. Membership comprises lawyers, academics, students and legal workers as well as trade union and labour movement affiliates. President: Michael Mansfield QC Vice Presidents: Geoffrey Bindman QC, Louise Christian, Liz Davies, Tess Gill, Tony Gifford QC, John Hendy QC, Helena “A hushed reverence met Professor Kennedy QC, Imran Khan, Catrin Lewis, Angela Davis, who – for many – is almost a figure of revolutionary Gareth Peirce, Michael Seifert, David Turner- mythology.” See pages 16-21. Samuels, Estella Schmidt, Phil Shiner, Jeremy Smith, Frances Webber & David Watkinson The current executive, elected at the AGM in December 2015 is as follows: Chair: Russell Fraser ([email protected]) Vice-Chairs: Natalie Csengeri & Michael Goold Secretary: Stephen Knight Number 72, February 2016 ([email protected]) Treasurer: Rebecca Harvey 4 News & comment The 32 Gaza The impact of Membership Secretary: Subashini refugee crisis: law and the battle conflict on women Wafa Nathan ([email protected]) for Europe’s soul; Cuban Five Kafarna looks at the results of Socialist Lawyer editor: Nick Bano free – and welcome here; Young interviews with women from the ([email protected]) Legal Aid Lawyers column; Gaza strip who went through the International Secretary: Bill Bowring & Carlos Orjuela ([email protected]) Transitional justice in Colombia; 2014 war Executive Committee: Unite against the Housing Bill; 36 Widespread and Robert Atkins, Martha Jean Baker, Anjenna ‘Full-frontal attack on trade pervasive violation of our Balasingham, Jacob Bindman, Aphra Bruce- unions’; and Day of the Jones, Tanzil Chowdhury, Kat Craig, Liz human rights Rashida Manjoo Davies, Emily Elliott, Elizabeth Forrester, Owen Endangered Lawyer on how to effectively challenge Greenhall, Richard Harvey, Paul Heron, John 12 Yes we can! Justice Alliance violence against women Hobson, Leslie Jaji, Sophie Khan, Siobhan Lloyd, Natasha Lloyd-Owen, Hannah Lynes, rally against legal aid cuts 39 Our right to choose: Anna Morris, Helen Mowatt, Amy Murtagh, 14 International Women’s challenging the state’s Declan Owens, Laurence Overend, Sam Conference Women fighting control over women’s Parham, Wendy Pettifer, Tim Potter, Ripon Ray, Brian Richardson, Catherine Rose, back: international and legal bodies Fighting for gender Lyndsey Sambrooks-Wright, Virginia Santini, perspectives equality helps the struggles for Judith Seifert, Shanthi Sivakumaran, Debra abortion rights, reports Virginia Stanislawski, Adiam Weldensae 16 ‘Radical, working class, anti-racist, anti-colonial Santini feminism’ Natalie Csengeri 42 The ‘Black Sash’ SocialistLawyer hears Angela Davis’ address to movement Rheian Davies looks Editor: Nick Bano the Conference at the group of women whose Assistant editors: Russell Fraser & Tim Potter Special thanks to Shanthi Sivakumaran, 22 Reports from the role was recognised by Nelson Emily Elliott, Michael Goold, Stephen Knight, International Women’s Mandela on his release Declan Owens & Isabel Baylis Cover image: Jess Hurd Conference 44 Reviews Play: ‘United We Design: Smith+Bell (www.smithplusbell.com) 24 Icons: Railton Road Stand’; books: ‘Jeremy Print: The Russell Press Artwork at Brixton Arts Centre Hutchinson’s Case Histories’ by (www.russellpress.com) Thomas Grant QC; ‘Lions Under Online distributor: Pluto Journals 28 Migrant women battle for (www.plutojournals.com) The Throne’ by Stephen Sedley; access to maternity care and ‘Northern ReSisters: ISSN: Rayah Feldman on policies Conversations with Radical Print 0954-3635 towards maternity care in 14 Women’ by Bernadette Hyland Online 2055-5369 European countries

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from the editor

Share and I had the unique pleasure of driving This internationalism and breadth Angela Davis – one of the of coverage reinforced the share alike International Women’s ‘awareness of interconnectedness’ Conference’s keynote speakers – that Angela Davis noted as being so from the airport. We crawled important: a Palestinian women’s through London looking at the rights activist talked to a former physical evidence of the housing UN special rapporteur, grassroots crisis, discussing austerity and the activists engaged with academics role of lawyers, and puzzling over a and young lawyers worked with roadside sign advertising ‘terrorism Haldane stalwarts. awareness week’. I wondered what This edition of Socialist Lawyer message a septuagenarian radical focuses on the conference. It’s a would have for today’s feminists. record for those who attended, a “Intersectionality” she told the report for those who didn’t and an conference “means we can focus analysis of some of the key points. on one particular struggle, but Regrettably there isn’t space to do with an awareness of inter - justice to all the topics, speakers connectedness”. and participants. However, the That, for me, was the real value of event itself sparked so much November’s conference. Many of us interest, debate and energy that this specialise in one cause or area of magazine need only be a law, and it was a reminder of the supplement. context in which we carry out our Davis also praised the women- work as socialist lawyers. Comrades focused collective leadership of shared their outstanding work in many of today’s social movements. areas that aren’t always at the It was inspiring, then, to see that forefront of our minds, as well as kind of leadership in so many of the discussing issues of overarching delegates and groups that attended importance such as the refugee – including the IWC’s phenomenal crisis, austerity and violence against organising committee. women and girls. Angela and I drove around The conference hosted Parliament Square to – I’m not extraordinary women: women making this up – ABBA’s ‘Knowing involved in struggles related to Me, Knowing You’ on the radio. migration, women’s bodies, Perhaps that epitomises the women in work, women in conflict conference: engaging in politics and many others. There was a through a greater understanding of strong international feel, including each other, and each other’s speakers from Palestine, Lebanon, struggles. Algeria, Cuba and South Africa. Nick Bano, editor

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conspicuously absent. Peers also expressed concerns The refugee crisis: about the EU agreement with Turkey to readmit refugees who had passed through. He cited law and the battle Turkey’s derivations from the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, which mean its provisions are applicable only to for Europe’s soul those fleeing European countries. With asylum seekers being denied access to employment and he refugee crisis exploded member states. With peak education as well as reports of into public consciousness in numbers of 5,000 people per day refoulement, it is not clear that T2015. Almost unprecedented landing on the shores of Lesbos Turkey is safe or desirable. media coverage saw scenes of alone, the need for a coordinated Frances Webber addressed the despair beamed from the beaches and unified response was obvious. crisis from a different perspective, of the Mediterranean to living But it was pointed out that we focusing on the rationale behind rooms across the continent. Europe have seen “a pattern of borders the lethargic response. She posited could no longer look the other way. being closed and fences being that the public discourse in Europe At the end of October the Haldane raised”, as member states shunt “has treated mass immigration of Society was fortunate to host EU refugees between themselves. refugees as a threat”, seeing the Law Professor Steve Peers and Hungary was singled out for its phenomenon in militaristic terms former immigration barrister (and particularly hostile approach to that require military responses. Haldane Society vice-president) asylum seekers, criminalising This is exemplified by the vast Frances Webber, and both analysed those who attempt to cross from industry that has grown around responses to the worst migration Serbia, and returning them across the detection, detention and crisis since the end of the Second the border with a conviction that removal of migrants. Frances World War. could prevent them from re- highlighted the fact that it is not Steve Peers centred his analysis entering the Schengen Area. social workers who greet asylum on the reactions of the EU and its The disunity that has hindered seekers but the border force of an effective EU response was also Frontex, as a clear indication that clear from discussions over “humanitarian concerns towards quotas. In an attempt to ease the refugees have always taken second strain on Italy and Greece, place”. also seen the best of the people of estimated to have received 1 This approach is evident in the Europe. Frances keenly described million people between them, the mistreatment that many have the strong support people have EU set an initial target of 40,000 suffered. There are reports of shown for refugees through mass people to be taken in by member asylum seekers in the Czech demonstrations, which saw tens of states on a voluntary basis. States Republic being routinely strip- thousands pour onto streets and only offered to take 32,000. It searched in an attempt to seize the demand action in support of took majority voting to force funds to pay for their detention. refugees. She talked of countless through an agreement for the Meanwhile Bulgaria has seen its aid convoys, people offering distribution of a further 120,000 border agency shoot and kill an rooms in their homes and the across the EU. Steve Peers noted Afghan crossing into the country, unforgettable reaction of Germans that “the numbers can be Sweden has seen reception centres cheering asylum seekers as they managed if there is the political torched, and across Europe the arrived at the train stations of will” but, with Germany as a far-right is on the march. Munich. notable exception, the drive to But if they represent the worst UK lawyers have written in take responsibility is of reactions to the crisis, we have The Times and The Guardian October 1: The ICC charged Ahmad al-Faqi al- 15: The Ministerial Code was re-written 20: The ECHR held that secret Mahdi, a member of Ansar Dine a to omit ministers’ obligation to comply hearings to determine whether a Tuareg Islamic extremist militia, with with international law when carrying out suspect can be held without charge are jointly ordering and carrying out the their duties. The amendment was Google it... legal in the context of anti-terrorism destruction of nine mausoleums and quietly introduced in the context of the £0 investigations. Faris Vehabović, in a the Sidi Yahia mosque in Timbuktu, Conservative government’s criticism of Tax paid by Cadbury’s on dissenting judgment, said that it was Mali. This is the first time that a person the Human Rights Act and the British sales of £2 billion and ‘unjustified’ to exclude the accused and has been charged with damaging European Court of Human Rights. his representative from hearings as it humanity’s cultural heritage. profit of almost £150 million deprived him of the opportunity to in 2014 dispute the evidence.

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News&Comment Pictures: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Pictures:

advocating the creation of safe routes of entry, while Hungarian lawyers have mounted strong opposition to their government’s actions. Initiatives from filmmakers and artists, such as ‘For a Thousand Lives be Human’, have appealed for more decisive action from the EU. The message is clear: ‘It is a battle for Europe’s soul. What we want is a people’s Europe and the initiatives coming out of the crisis, the best of the people’s responses are where In December, thousands of anti-war campaigners protested outside Parliament as MPs voted to bomb Syria by 397 to we want to take it’. 223, a majority of 174. One of the speakers outside, Kate Hudson, general secretary of CND, called for: “No more war lies from our government. We had war lies from the Blair government and he was proved to be a war criminal.” Leslie Jaji November 30: The last British national in 18: The Supreme Court dismissed 25: The High Court ruled that the welfare 30: The High Court in Northern Ireland Guantanamo Bay, Shaker Aamer, was an appeal by two wives against an secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, unlawfully ruled that the almost-outright ban on released and arrived back in the UK. immigration rule requiring their discriminated against disabled people abortion breached the rights of women Although he has grounds to launch a spouses to speak English before when he subjected their carers to a and girls. However, the High Court claim for wrongful imprisonment, he moving to the UK. Spouses are now benefit cap. The High Court found that specified that the breach only applied to has indicated that he only wants an required to pass an English test at carers looking after relatives for more than women pregnant with babies with apology from the British government for approved test centres before they 35 hours a week were effectively in work foetal abnormalities or pregnant as a their complicity in his torture and not can enter . even though they were receiving benefits result of sexual crime. compensation. and should be exempt from the cap intended to push so-called workless families into work. Socialist Lawyer February 2016 5 SL72_pp4-13_news.qxp 14/02/2016 14:17 Page 6

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Solidarity Campaign and Voices for invitation to speak in Parliament. the Five. The campaign was taken Again, this was rejected by the Cuban Five free – up by trade unionists and socialists ECO on the same grounds. throughout the world, and in the This was the start of a year-long UK in particular. The Haldane litigation process. Having and welcome here Society for its part played a role in exhausted administrative appeal promoting an International routes, an application for judicial Commission of Inquiry held at the review was made. This was he case of the Cuban Five (or into the USA. Their cover in the Law Society, which inquired into supported by a number of MPs as Miami Five) is an example USA was maintained for years. their trial and the conditions of their interveners, including Jeremy Tof international working But the last adventure for the detention. Attended by many noted Corbyn and John McDonnell. class solidarity at its best. The Five began on 12 September 1998 international jurists, it exemplified Permission for judicial review Cuban Five were members of an when FBI agents broke down their the efforts on the international stage having initially been refused, intelligence network (La Red doors, swooping in to arrest them to achieve justice. permission was granted to appeal Avispa, or The Wasp Network) set in dawn raids. Placed on trial for a Having served his sentence, to the Court of Appeal on the up by the Cuban government to range of offences, primarily relating René Gonzalez was released from grounds of the serious infiltrate far-right terrorist groups to espionage – but also, in the case prison in 2011 and was permitted constitutional issues that the case in the USA who were carrying out of Gerardo Hernández, conspiracy to return to Cuba permanently in raised in terms of the clash between attacks on Cuban soil, primarily to murder – the Five never stood a 2013 on condition of surrendering the will of the executive, and the against tourist targets. They chance. Tried by a jury drawn from his joint-US citizenship. Fernando desires of parliamentarians. successfully penetrated several such Miami, the most hostile González was released on 27th The case was heard in the Court organisations and are treated in environment conceivable to alleged February 2014. Both men joined of Appeal on 20th October 2015. Cuba as heroes for their role in Cuban spies, and slandered the international campaign of René and the MPs were represented preventing bombings and other throughout the trial by local media solidarity for the remaining pro bono by solicitors from attacks against civilians. paid by the US government for the members of the Five. Duncan Lewis and Public Interest The lives of the Cuban Five at purpose, the Five were inevitably Playing his role in the campaign Lawyers respectively, and by times read like an adventure story. convicted of all charges. Despite a for the release of his comrades, barristers from Mansfield René Gonzalez convinced the set of initially successful appeals René Gonzalez sought to attend the Chambers. On behalf of René it Americans that he had defected based on the political nature of International Commission of was argued that the invitation to from Cuba by stealing a plane, zig- their trials their convictions were Inquiry in London, but was refused speak in Parliament, coupled with zagging across the ocean while eventually upheld and they began entry by the UK’s Entry Clearance the international concern about the flying low to avoid radar, and long prison sentences, and their Officer (“ECO”) based in Havana political nature of his conviction, landing in Florida on an empty fuel quest for justice. on the grounds of his conviction, amounted to exceptional tank. Gerardo Hernández trained Throughout their imprisonment which had resulted in a prison circumstances, such that preventing as a diplomat before assuming a an international solidarity sentence of more than four years. his entry to the UK would amount false identity as the Puerto Rican campaign developed, in the UK The Immigration Rules (para to a breach of the ECHR. On ‘Manuel Viramóntez’ and slipping principally through the Cuba 320(2)(b)) provided that this was a behalf of the interveners it was also bar to his entry to the UK, unless he argued that MPs have a right under could show exceptional the ECHR Article 10 to receive circumstances or a breach of the information relevant to the exercise European Convention on Human of their functions, and that this Rights. The Home Office guidance right is to be accorded particular suggests that ‘exceptional weight due to its instrumental circumstances’ includes reliable importance in a democratic society: evidence that the conviction was to deny them the right to speak to politically motivated. René one to one would amount to a A further application was made breach of that Article 10 right. for him to enter the country, this In the course of oral argument it time supported by a number of unexpectedly emerged that the The Cuban Five: all now free – and welcome to come to the UK. MPs and Lords, and with a specific decision to deny entry to René was December 3: Mandatory criminal court charges 13: Seventeen women were elected as 17: Following a large number of library were scrapped less than a year after municipal councillors in the first election closures, the Chartered Institute of they were introduced and following the open to female candidates in Saudi Library and Information Professionals resignations of more than 100 Arabia. £4,327 has launched a legal challenge over the magistrates. Despite widespread Corporation tax paid by government’s failure to carry out its legal condemnation, Michael Gove is still duties to the public. considering introducing discretionary Facebook in 2014 criminal court charges.

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Young Legal Aid Lawyers This regular column is written by YLAL members. If you are interested in joining or supporting their work, please visit their website www.younglegalaidlawyers.org Labour’s finally getting it right

in fact taken not by the ECO in t won’t have escaped Haldane Cuba, but by the Home Secretary Society members’ notice that herself, who directed the ECO to Ithere is an unashamed socialist refuse entry to René. This only leading the Labour Party. Readers underlined what we had always will also be aware that one of known: that rather than being a Corbyn’s first acts as leader was to strict adherence to the Immigration ask Lord Bach to carry out a Rules by an anonymous civil comprehensive review of legal aid servant, the decision to deny René policy. YLAL was invited to the entry to the UK was an launch event for the review in unashamedly political decision. November, which was addressed On 10th November 2015, in a by Corbyn, John McDonnell, Lord reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: unanimous judgment, the court Falconer, Lord Bach and Karl granted permission for judicial Turner. The fact that the leader of review, and then allowed the claim, the opposition and shadow holding that there had in fact been a chancellor attended a public breach of Article 10 by the meeting about legal aid speaks Secretary of State. In doing so, the volumes: legal aid merited barely a court did not feel the need to place mention in the 2015 Labour YLAL founder Laura Janes any reliance on the position now manifesto. occupied by some of the interveners Corbyn and McDonnell served as members of the Opposition front together on the Justice Select He expressed the hope that such a rally: her party is now “being led bench. This point is likely to be of Committee during the Coalition consensus would be in line with: by somebody who believes what great assistance to applicants for and Corbyn is a former chair of the “The principles set out so well we believe: that this is vital”. entry clearance if similar All Party Parliamentary Group on by the Young Legal Aid Lawyers – These are undoubtedly very circumstances arise in future. Legal Aid. McDonnell described a very impressive group – in its positive developments, but only During the course of the legal aid cuts as a ‘false economy’ briefing note: ‘Equal access to so much can be achieved in litigation the remaining three with immense long-term costs, justice for all irrespective of wealth opposition. Barring unforeseen members of the Five (Gerardo while Corbyn described access to should be the absolute core circumstances (perhaps involving Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, justice as a ‘fundamental human principle of our legal aid system. Europe) the Conservatives will and Ramón Labañino) were right’. Corbyn also rejected the We believe that the cost of legal stay in power until 2020. The granted presidential commutations idea that pro bono can be a aid should be met by the state Ministry of Justice must find of sentence, and were sent back to substitute for publicly-funded legal through general taxation. We further savings of 15%. It seems Cuba in an exchange of political advice and representation: ‘Pro believe that access to justice is a that no further cuts to legal aid prisoners (as a condition of the bono, charity and food banks are public good’ – I emphasise the are planned, although the dispute commutation Antonio Guerrero not the solution to inequality. If we words “a public good” – ‘that regarding criminal legal aid was required to renounce his US want a rights-based society with should be classed by government contracts is ongoing and the citizenship.) Happily, all members equal access to justice, we have to in the same category as the rights lawfulness of the residence test for of the Cuban Five are now free in pay for it’. to healthcare and education’. civil legal aid is likely to be Cuba. They are immensely grateful Lord Bach told the meeting that These are principles that should determined by the Supreme for the solidarity shown to them by he will chair a commission of unite us all, and I believe in Court. people from around the world. In experts, which will invite oral and principle that they do. However, if Looking to the future, much Cuba, they are heroes. In the UK, written evidence, and aims to I may say so to the minister, whose may depend on whether the thanks to the tireless efforts of prepare a draft report by April and remarks I look forward to Conservatives see austerity as a certain Labour MPs and others, a final report in time for the party hearing, a good start would be for short-term fix or a long-term they are now welcome. conference. We are delighted that Her Majesty’s Government to philosophy. YLAL is non-partisan Stephen Knight, barrister at YLAL founder Laura Janes has think urgently about undoing and will work with any party to Mansfield Chambers, part of the been invited to join the some of the damage they have support junior legal aid lawyers Interveners’ legal team and member commission, along with other caused.” and improve access to justice. We of the Executive of Haldane Society. eminent civil and criminal legal aid Corbyn’s attendance at the have met with every Minister for lawyers, and we look forward to Voices for Justice rally, organised Legal Aid since the office was contributing to the review. by the Justice Alliance at Conway created, with the exception (so far) In a debate in the House of Hall on 6th January, provided of the current incumbent, Shailesh 17: The Supreme Court dismissed a Lords in December, Lord Bach further evidence of Labour’s new- Vara. We have invited the Minister legal challenge that police stop-and- referred approvingly to the found commitment to legal aid. to meet with us to discuss legal aid search powers were being used briefing note that YLAL had Corbyn pledged that Labour “will policy and its impact on junior disproportionately against black prepared. Bach hoped for a return support and defend the principle lawyers; if there is any prospect of people. The Supreme Court to the decades-long consensus that of legal aid”, which he described pushing the government in a unanimously held that the searches ‘helped to develop legal aid as an as a “basic human right”. As the positive direction, we will seek to were necessary to deter violent crime and gangs. essential part of the social security Labour peer and self-described do so. As ever, we live in hope. system that every citizen was “old legal aid lawyer” Baroness Oliver Carter, co-chair of Young entitled to in a civilised country’. Helena Kennedy QC told the Legal Aid Lawyers

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the distinction is a crucial one and has its roots in the idea that Transitional justice citizens have a right to rebellion, recognised in various international legal instruments in Colombia such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He was quick, however, to also emphasise that n keeping with its longstanding law, especially international amnesty and pardon would not support for the peace process human rights law, guarantees the cover ‘international crimes’ such Iand the development of human rights of victims and guarantees as war crimes and crimes against rights in Colombia, the Haldane the ‘non-repetition of humanity. Guerrilla members and Society, in collaboration with victimisation’ ,which has persisted – importantly – members of the Justice for Colombia and Marcha throughout the conflict. state and its paramilitary Patriotica, hosted a meeting in The agreement provides for auxiliaries would be liable to November on the issue of amnesty and pardon for ‘political prosecution. transitional justice. The meeting crimes’. Santiago emphasised that Santiago concluded by marked the three-year anniversary of the beginning of the talks in Habana. Students and members of the Colombian community came to hear Enrique Santiago, Max Boqwana and John Jairo give their analyses of a subject which, to date, has been the most controversial and polarising issue in the peace talks thus far. Santiago, whom the Norwegian government has appointed to advise Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (‘FARC’) and is also a bureau member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (‘IADL’), gave a thorough and illuminating presentation on the current state of the talks. Santiago emphasised that the agreement on the ‘Special Jurisdiction for Peace’, signed on 23rd September 2015 by the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the leaders of the FARC in the presence of Cuban President Raul Castro, adhered to the framework that had been established at the beginning of the peace talks; an agreement that Campaigners outside parliament on 5th January. Petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-housing-bill strictly adheres to international January 5: Leigh Day was referred to the Between 2010 and 2015 12: Thousands of junior doctors took 18: The Conservative government Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over their the wealth of the poorest part in their first strike in more than 40 removed maintenance grants using handling of the Iraqi cases in the Al 50 per cent in the world years. It was the first of three planned secondary legislation to avoid a proper Sweady Inquiry. Leigh Day challenged fell by 41 per cent – strikes after two years of negotiations parliamentary debate. Maintenance the referral as premature given the short failed to reach an agreement. The grants had previously been allocated to period of time to respond to the despite an increase by 400 million of the global government is seeking to set normal students from low-income Solicitors Regulation Authority working hours for doctors to include backgrounds to offset barriers to higher regarding the numerous allegations. population. until 10pm at night and weekends. education.

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describing the practicalities of gave a comparative analysis the underlying economic and and that implementation is implementing the above, which between the Colombian peace social disparity. The talks did not monitored by the international include the creation of the various process and the South African adequately address land and community alongside Colombian courts: (i) Truth and Recognition agreement that brought to an end economic inequality, which meant civil society. of Responsibility; (ii) Amnesty the apartheid government. that an opportunity to deal with The Haldane Society will and Pardon; (iii) Definition of Boqwana began by focusing on these fundamental issues was continue to campaign in support Juridical Situations; and (iv) the the provision of amnesty to those missed. It is hoped that the parties of the peace process and will stand Special Tribunal for Peace. The who collaborated with the to the conflict in Colombia will with activists and lawyers targeted last of these would be responsible process. It was through this manage to address these by the state for their attempts to for trying and sentencing for those amnesty that various serious state fundamental concerns as part of safeguard human rights in who have committed crimes to crimes could finally be brought to any agreement reached. Colombia. which amnesty doesn’t apply. light, which helped many black Finally, John Jairo of Marcha For more information about Max Boqwana gave his South Africans to come to terms Patriotica UK spoke on the role of the peace process please visit presentation via video link with the past. civil society in making sure, firstly, Justice for Colombia’s website and directly from South Africa. The However, Boqwana was also that the peace process continues to our own Defending Human IADL bureau treasurer and CEO critical of the South African its conclusion, that victims of the Rights Defenders website. of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation agreement’s failure to deal with conflict have better involvement, Carlos Orjuela Unite against the Housing Bill

he Government is pushing Bill will make that worse, and hit through a Housing Bill that the poorest, the most vulnerable Twill mean higher rents, less and women fleeing violence, as security, and less chance of a home well as cut Traveller sites and you can afford. The Bill sells off rights. existing council homes to the The Bill had its second reading highest bidder; removes secure in November and the Government tenancies; imposes ‘pay to stay’ tabled major amendments over market-linked rent rises for council Christmas (including removing and housing association tenants (if secure tenancies) with no two household members’ income consultation or scrutiny by

is over £30k – or £40k in London); Committee. They didn’t put this in reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Pictures: means increased rents and longer their Manifesto! It’s had a total of Eileen Short: ‘We must stop this Bill’. waiting lists; reduces rights for just 12 hours debate in the private renters and Travellers; and Commons, with six hours on the stop this Bill. We need your help. replaces ‘affordable’ homes for 5th January (starting at 9pm!) and Please affiliate and get involved rent with ‘starter homes’ most a second six hours a week later. and join the demonstration in cannot afford. It’s now in the Lords, and London on 13th March (see This will force people from probably there till the end of below). their homes, friends and family, March, before going back to the Eileen Short healthcare and networks, breaking Commons. [email protected] up our communities. Millions are A ‘Kill the Housing Bill’ [email protected] already forced into private renting, campaign aims to unite tenants, 07432 098440 Twitter: @KillHousingBill in damp, overcrowded housing, housing workers, trade unions, with no long-term security. This MPs and councillors in a bid to Facebook: Kill the Housing Bill This campaign NATIONAL is supported by Defend Council Housing, Kirklees KILL Federation of Tenants, Camden Assembly of Tenants, the Tower Hamlets Tenants Federation, National Bargee DEMO Travellers Association, Radical Housing Network, GMB, Unison and Bakers Food and Allied Workers trade unions, NUT London Teachers Housing Campaign, Unison Camden KILLtheHOUSINGBILL

HOUSING Sunday LG, Cambridge City and other branches, Unite Housing Workers, the Green Party, John McDonnell MP, London 13 meet 12 noon BILL Gypsy Traveller Unit, Morning Star newspaper, Haldane Lincoln’s Inn Fields, SECURE HOMES FOR ALL Society of Socialist Lawyers, Islington Hands Off Our Public MARCH CONTROL RENTS Services, Islington Private Tenants, Hackney and Waltham Forest Trades Councils, Leeds Hands Off Our Homes 2016 London WC2A 3TL

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further opportunities to apply for an injunction. ‘Full-frontal attack There are further restrictions on picketing. During the London Underground dispute over the on trade unions’ summer the RMT had to ballot 450 separate workplaces. As Hendy points out: “most of those ohn Hendy QC, a leading Human Rights. “We ought to be in in the RMT are ordinary people – authority on labour law and a position where the right to strike to go on a picket line is already a Ja vice-president of the should be equally revered as the brave act.” Given the Haldane Society, gave a lecture on right to a fair trial. But we aren’t; government’s plan to remove the the Trade Union Bill to Haldane and this Bill is pushing our rights ban on strike-breaking agency members at the Annual General provided through the European workers, unions will need to picket Meeting on 9th December. The Social Charter out in favour of far more workplaces. Tory government, Hendy said, political objectives”. After the Bill becomes law, a unexpectedly rose to power and is “This Bill”, Hendy said, “is a ‘picket supervisor’ must give their now creating the most restrictive full-frontal attack on trade details to the police. “What a laws in the Western world. unions”. It has a significant impact Bill is part of Thatcher’s legacy; the chilling effect it must be for This Bill attacks trade unions on UK’s international obligations, latest chapter in a 30-year history workers on the picket line who and undermines the important including Articles 5, 6 and 11 of of undermining and dis- have to pick one of them to be a human rights legacy of the 20th the ECHR. It seeks to “influence empowering trade unions. supervisor,” Hendy said. What the Century. It is at odds with the over the conditions of life and Thatcher’s government left police will do with this International Labour working conditions, whilst industrial laws in a dreadful state, information is anyone’s guess, but Organization’s conventions, the creating a distortion of the labour yet the then Labour leader Tony Hendy told us : “in the course of International Covenant on Civil market”. Blair wrote an article in The Times the disclosure of documents in and Political Rights, the The International Labour in 1997 promising to not look blacklisting case, we have learnt International Charter of Organization was built around the back to the 1970s. Over 13 years that the police were having Economic, Social and Cultural principle that labour is not a the Labour government did meetings with consulting agencies. Rights, the European Social commodity, “yet that principle has nothing to challenge Thatcher’s The police spoke to firms who Charter, the Charter of been disregarded [...] It is an aspect legacy, nor to protect the right to have blacklisted workers.” Fundamental Rights of the EU of the market for neo-liberals, who strike and collective bargaining. This Bill cements UK labour and, the European Convention on seek to smash the unions.” This The Bill itself will make it more laws as unprogressive compared to difficult to organise industrial other parts of the world. In action. It imposes onerous Austria, France and Sweden up to The Legal Workers’ Trade Union requirements that could invalidate 80% of workers are covered by (LWTU) is determined to improve the a strike ballot for any number of collective bargaining. Workers welfare, working conditions and worker reasons, for example if members secured a victory last year in the participation of legal sector workers. fail to keep their address up to Canadian Supreme Court in SFL v Legal sector workers and students of date. It turns absentions into ‘no’ Saskatchewan. In the UK however, any sort, whether qualified, votes, and in important public collective bargaining has been administrative, or support staff are services and ancillary undertakings reduced to no more than collective invited to contact the LWTU for there is a ‘supermajority’ begging. As Hendy put it: information and support towards requirement. “This assault on the right to unionising legal workplaces. The existing balloting strike and right to collective Subashini Nathan, Legal Workers requirements are at odds with bargaining is what this anti-union Trade Union Article 11 of the ECHR, yet under legislation has been all about since Website: https://legaltradeunion.wordpress.com the Bill ballots will have to include 1980 […] Today eight out of every Twitter: @Legal_TU Email: [email protected] a detailed indication of the matters 10 workers are at the complete in dispute, which gives employers mercy of their employers and the January 21: Climate change activists with the Between 2010 and 2015 27: A victim of domestic violence and 28: The justice secretary not only Plane Stupid campaign were the wealth of the richest the grandparents of a severely disabled aborted ‘two-tier’ contracting, but he convicted of aggravated trespass for 62 people in the world teenager have won their case, also abandoned the latest 8.75% cut in occupying Heathrow’s north runway. increased by HALF A establishing that the imposition of the fees. In a surprisingly frank written The defendants had attempted to call TRILLION dollars to bedroom tax is unlawful discrimination. statement Gove acknowleged the role noted scientists, John McDonnell and The DWP has appealed to the of the judicial reviews against his Caroline Lucas, and George Monbiot Supreme Court. department and praised the work of to give evidence. $1.76tn criminal lawyers.

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News&Comment

Labour market. The average worker seeking work doesn’t negotiate their contract of Day of employment, and there is no union to stand on their behalf to conduct these negotiations.” defiance Heron Pictures:Paul The Labour Party made attempts to amend the Bill to allow online and secure workplace he Haldane Society is proud balloting. This would have made it to participate each year at the far easier to organise workers. Tend of January in the Day of However, the amendments were the Endangered Lawyer. This is the rejected by the government. If the initiative of the Dutch advocate Bill passes union members must Hans Gaasbeek. Since 2010 protests play a much more active role, and have been organised in front of from Haldane, Peace Brigades way to Diyarbakir in the Kurdish organisers will face burdensome embassies in solidarity with International and the Colombia south east of Turkey on a four day requirements. endangered lawyers. The date Caravana. The Ambassador of ELDH mission with 13 participants How can we stop the Bill? The commemorates the four lawyers and Honduras invited five from Belgium, Germany, Italy, and burden is on the movement and a trade unionist killed by Spanish representatives in for discussions. Austria. They were going to communities. Lawyers might fascists in Madrid in January 1977. The biggest association of investigate human rights violations challenge the Act, but Hendy The day is organised across ELDH is the Progressive Lawyers inflicted by the Turkish authorities; points out that a favourable Europe by the European Lawyers Association – CHD – in Turkey, and civilian casualties; and the curfew, outcome in the ECtHR might take for Democracy and Human Rights they organised large the number of people affected, and five years of litigation. (EDLH), with members in 18 demonstrations in six cities of the impact of the curfew on the It is important that workers and European countries; and the Turkey and Haldane’s sister population. community members remain European Democratic Lawyers organisation in Germany, the VDJ The next meeting of the ELDH united. Hendy points out that (AED). – Association of Democratic Executive will take place on 7th Unite has started to organise This year the event was also Lawyers –organised one in Berlin May 2016 in Athens, hosted by the workers who are not at work, supported by the Honduran (see images from both on Haldane’s Greek association of ELDH, the through Unite the Community. Association of Judges for Facebook page). Alternative Intervention of Athens Demonstrations of support can Democracy; the European Bar ELDH General Secretary, the Lawyers [AIAL], www.epda.gr. defeat the Act. The Pentonville Human Rights Institute, IDHAE; German trade union lawyer Contact me at dockers who were imprisoned in the Council of Bars and Law Thomas Schmidt, could not take [email protected] for details. 1972 helped to defeat the Societies of Europe, CCBE; various part in the protests as he was on his Bill Bowring Industrial Relations Act 1971. bar associations; Lawyers for The junior doctors’ dispute Lawyers; International Association shows that the benefits of of Democratic Lawyers, IADL; unionising can reach beyond International Association of People’s traditionally working class jobs. Lawyers, IAPL; and International The BMA have built a fantastic Association of Lawyers, UIA – as campaign, assisted by the uniform well as lawyers in New Zealand. anger of the workforce. The legal This year’s Day of the sector will need to take note that, Endangered Lawyer took place on although we are dispersed and 22nd January in London, at the under huge economic pressure, we Honduras Embassy (see picture with remain workers. We need to unite banner above). The Guardian ourselves, as well as damning this featured a letter signed by Haldane Adam Lunn (PBI), Prof Bill Bowring (President ELDH), Ambassador Ivan Bill and standing in solidarity with president Mike Mansfield QC, Romero-Martinez, Camila Zapata Besso (Colombia Caravana), Tim Potter workers everywhere. (Barrister) and Paul Heron (Public Interest Lawyers) - both the Haldane Louise Christian and others. The Society Executive Committee. Subashini Nathan picket was attended by supporters

30: The government has appointed 31: Court cleaning staff in the IWGB ‘There is now an industry ‘‘...bunch of migrants.’ Tottenham MP David Lammy to union took industrial action across trying to profit from David Cameron in the House of investigate and report on the way in London in favour of a living wage. spurious claims lodged Commons. which the criminal justice system Cleaners are sub-contracted by Mitie, against our brave disproportionately punishes people of which pays the minimum wage despite servicemen.’ ‘Dave was being polite.’ black and minority ethnic backgrounds. posting profits of £49 million in 2014. Prime Minister David Cameron Columnist Richard Littlejohn. wants to stop people suing for mistreatment by soldiers.

Socialist Lawyer February 2016 11 SL72_pp4-13_news.qxp 14/02/2016 14:17 Page 12 Yes we can!

On Wednesday 6th January the Justice Alliance organised a rally in support of legal aid. Jeremy Corbyn – who was apparently re- shuffling the shadow cabinet by texting under the table – told the rally that legal aid is a ‘basic human right’. Other speakers included Helen Steel, Marcia Rigg, Shami Chakrabarti and Emma Scott of Rights of Women (whose speech was read out by Heather Harvey). Over 400 attended, including a frightening Michael Gove puppet. Three weeks later Gove abandoned the ‘two-tier’ contact scheme and postponed further cuts to criminal legal aid. Together with the abolition of the criminal courts charge, that represents the start of the dismantling of Chris Grayling’s legacy. Those successes have been hard won by direct action, and by rallies such as the Justice Alliance’s.

Pictures: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk

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Socialist Lawyer February 2016 13 SL72_pp14-15_IWC_intro.qxp_print 14/02/2016 14:37 Page 14 Wo men fightingback: international andlegal perspectives

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers International Wo men’s Conference Organised with: Supported by:

WILPF Trust

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The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy & World Human Rights hosted the International Women’s Conference on 28th and 29th November 2015. Over 200 activists, lawyers, academics and people with an interest in intersectional feminism attended London South Bank University for a combination of workshops, panel sessions and high-level speakers. The conference brought a critical, left-wing and intersectional perspective to the women's movement and provided a forum for exchanging ideas and practical skills between lawyers, academics and activists to advance women’s campaigns and struggles. “Now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock. You have dislodged a boulder. You will be crushed”. Song from the National Women’s Day Protest, USA 1956. Picture: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture:

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Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers International Wo men’s Conference

‘Radical, working class, anti-racist, anti-colonial feminism’ Natalie Csengeri hears Angela Davis’ address to the Conference.

A hushed reverence met Professor Angela Davis who – for many – is almost a figure of revolutionary mythology. She is known for fighting for women’s liberation, for people of colour, and for socialism. Having got off a plane that morning she was astonishingly sharp. In a style that was uniquely both authoritative and down-to-earth, Davis brought together the threads of Women Fighting Back with spirit, kindness and sagacity. >>>

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>>> Davis began by saying that she was Putting this historical moment in context, activists in the US recognise that these attacks happy that the Haldane Society had not given she touched first on the protests in the US have been “continuous since the 19th century up on socialism and recognising the against police violence against black bodies and the aftermath of slavery”, citing the importance of the leadership role of women from Ferguson to San Diego. She asked infamous lynching case of Emmett Till in 1955 lawyers and activists. Referring to her whether it is a temporary moment or whether and the ‘kissing case’ in North Carolina, participation in an unabashedly intersectional, #blacklivesmatter signified a new direction for where two black boys (aged seven and nine) socialist, feminist conference, she asked: black anti-racist movements. She noted that it were charged and convicted of molestation “[w]here else would one want to be at this was three queer black women who started the after being kissed by a white girl on the cheek. particular junction in history?” Referring to Black Lives Matter movement. Davis urged us not to forget the names of her arrest 45 years ago (when she was on the Davis evaluated the effect of women those black women and women of colour FBI’s ‘10 Most Wanted’ list), and subsequent bringing new forms of leadership. Comparing killed by institutionalised state violence. release after the Free Angela Davis Campaign, more patriarchal forms of leadership, which Marking the tragic killings of Tanisha she went on to say that she would not be throw up a single figure as a rallying point, she Anderson and Sandra Bland in Texas, Davis where she is today without her lawyers. She noted that movements with women leaders drew connections with the sorry state of added, however, that “lawyering alone […] were, in the words of the organisers of Black mental health understanding and care in the may not accomplish what we might expect it Lives Matter: “leaderful, not leaderless”, as US. “Mental illness as experienced by a black to, but most lawyers who are aware of the well as collective. She also noted the anti- woman […] who encounters the police is often connection of the work they do with the capitalist direction in the movement, a fatal combination”. She added how importance of mass movements are doing particularly the targeting of the Magnificent dangerous it is for trans women of colour who some of the most important work of our Mile in Chicago on Black Friday in autumn are unable to pass, calling them “an easy time.” 2015. target for state violence” and giving the names She then gave a thorough analysis of the of Lorena Xtravaganza, Elisha Walker and harrowing scale of state violence in the US. Tamara Dominguez as just a few in the long Challenging the mistaken impression that list of trans women of colour killed by police. police are becoming more violent and more “Movements everywhere, especially in the oppressive, Davis said that most anti-racist US, urgently need to acknowledge the importance of internationalism”, Davis observed. Drawing on the connection to today’s movements, she praised women like Lilian Ngoyi and Helen Joseph who led the National Women’s Day Protest in 1956, the largest march in the country at that time, where women marched on union buildings

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and took part in a 30 minute silence. This was was so successful that, when the football contemporary era, noting that this recognition a pivotal moment for the country and had team joined the cause, the president and the of deep connections “between gender symbolic historical significance for women. chancellor resigned in a single day. Davis violence, anti-racism, and anti-capitalism” It fought back against the propaganda that noted the progress of social movements arises from feminist influences. Those women were ‘politically immature’. Davis incorporating internationalism, particularly influences allow for more capacious analysis, recounted the words of the song sung by the the plight of the Palestinians as a constant Davis suggested. Distinguishing women on that march: “You have touched the theme in black activism, from Ferguson to intersectionalism from an obligation to be part women, you have struck a rock, you have South Africa. of every struggle, Davis states that whether dislodged a boulder, you will die”. After first confessing that she has not one’s activist work is for housing rights, >>> Davis went on to note how the current always embraced feminism, Davis told of struggles in South Africa have paid homage to her previous assumption that feminism was the 1956 women’s march. There have been “inevitably bourgeois feminism.” However, weeks of protests by university students she went on to praise the rise in fighting to “liberate their university from the intersectionality driving activism in the web of capital”. These protests ended with a massive demonstration at the same union buildings. Bringing back the connections with the US, Davis illustrated how black and other progressive students are demanding changes. These include calls for the resignation of the president of the University of Missouri when he failed to respond to racism. That campaign Picture: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture:

ca

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“Most lawyers who are aware of the connection of the work they do with the importan >>> gender equality, or the rights of refugees, Davis noted, “would be one way to further Davis gave an anti-racist and anti-capitalist it is best done with “an awareness of the refine what feminisms are most productive for analysis of state violence. She observed that interconnectedness of these issues… and the this moment in history”. using state violence to stop gender violence way that global capitalism has exacerbated all For instance, she pointed out how an replicates that violence, and that some feminist of the social problems of our time”. Davis understanding of Marxism and anti-racist activists look for alternatives. A fight against further quipped “not all feminisms are equal”, struggles gives one an insight into the ‘concept’ gender violence “has to challenge its own which she clarified by eschewing feminisms of diversity. Davis described diversity as ‘a reliance on criminalisation”. As a founder of that focus on the upward movement of corporate strategy’, designed to make it Critical Resistance (an organisation women while maintaining and replicating appear as if something is being done when in advocating for prison abolition) Davis hierarchies of oppression, thereby leaving reality a fig-leaf is plastered over the real explained that the profitability of punishment women who suffer multiple form of issues. “More and more people of colour and is a central strategy of capitalism, which oppression behind. What kind of feminism is women are allowed to participate in an oppresses people of colour most of all. it that Davis pushes for? “Radical, working apparatus that continues to be as oppressive as Criticising “this simplistic notion of security class, anti-racism, anti-colonial feminism” it was before the incorporation of people of […] the all you have to do is lock up the really colour and women”. She went on to – again – dangerous people (inevitably people of colour) praise the student movements for arguing “for and the rest of society will be fine”, Davis something that is much stronger than diversity – for an end to institutionalised racism, for radical change, and decolonisation”. Direct action and the reclaiming of symbols, Davis pointed out, amounts to more than the sanitised, empty goal of ‘diversity’. She gave the example of Bree Newsome climbing the flagpole at the capitol building in South Carolina in the wake of the black church shooting in 2015 by a white supremacist, and ripping down the confederate flag.

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Pictures: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk

ortance of mass movements are doing some of the most important work of our time.” points to the serious degradation of education lawyers, she urges, who must not just use the Davis ended by saying that she doesn’t while the prison industrial system and law within the state, but must go further and believe there will be a time where we will ever incarceration technologies grow. challenge both the law and the framework fully solve all social and political issues, but Met with raucous applause, Davis then that produced that law. Finally, when asked rather, as we struggle, we become more aware humbly urged the audience to sit down for an what is next for the movement, Davis of other issues. “That is what is so exciting exchange. She was asked for advice for black responded with the importance of about being an activist today”, she concluded, women in the struggle and told the audience environmental struggles and food justice. to the sound of thunderous applause. that the most effective activists find their own Because “what good is it for a world without way, adding that she does not think there is a patriarchy and homophobia and racism Natalie Csengeri is a barrister at Farringdon formula for how to be a great leader or when the planet itself is disintegrating?”. Chambers and Vice Chair of the Haldane Society activist. Wafa Kafarna, who attended the Building on her own veganism, Davis notes conference having travelled all the way from the issue of the capitalist industrial Gaza, asked for her insight into the struggle in production of animals, which so senselessly Palestine. Davis did not give her response creates boundless cruelty and torture, which within the standard one-state or two-state colonises the planet, and which causes solution paradigm, but answered by pushing unnecessary environmental damage. for the “possibility of imagining liberation outside of the concept of the state”. Davis then went on to criticise the nation-state as a major problem, which arose from capitalism. It is

Socialist Lawyer February 2016 21 SL72_pp22-27_IWC_reports.qxp_print 14/02/2016 14:32 Page 22

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers International ‘Can lawyers be effective if Wo men’s Conference and principles that are so o

Reports Pictures: Thomas Schmidt Thomas Pictures:

Pictured here are some of the many speakers at the conference (left to right): Dr Marina Prentoulis; Louise Christian and Frances Webber; Alexandra Putting the red in the red light: the debate Muñoz Valdez and on the decriminalisation of prostitution Ahlam Beydoun; This workshop addressed the Sarah Ricca; decriminalisation of prostitution and the form Women and environmental justice Alexandra Muñoz that this should take. Broadly, the workshop What has climate change got to do with Valdez; Wafa Kafarna; debate fell into two camps – those who wish to women? And what has any of this got to do and Gareth Peirce. decriminalise sex workers and those who with the law? I was flummoxed by these favour criminalising the users of sex services. questions and that is why I attended this Under current laws, prostitution itself is not workshop, facilitated by Melanie Strickland, a illegal but activities around it are – running solicitor and climate change activist. Strickland brothels is banned, as is soliciting sex on the sandwiched a period of reflection and street. discussion between recitations of two poems – Taking justice into our own hands The industry has long lobbied for a powerful form of political repertoire – by Izzy Köksal from Housing Action Southwark decriminalising sex workers. Current fellow environmental activists. She began with and Lambeth (HASL) and Lizzie O’Shea, a restrictions prevent sex workers from, for Helen Moore’s Glory Be To Gaia while we litigator and academic, led the discussion in example, working together in flats or houses, delegates contemplated our thankfulness for this workshop. Köksal – who was joined by which could greatly increase safety. Sex workers the natural environment. We were then shown other HASL members – discussed her are less commonly advocates of criminalising a number of images variously depicting the tar experience of ‘direct action casework’ and users – they wish to protect their trade and sands in Canada, Steve Bell-style cartoons addressing housing problems through mutual argue that they could be forced into potentially inviting us to consider the despair or apathy- support, and O’Shea brought her experience more dangerous, underground situations. inducing obfuscation of the dominant both as a lawyer and an academic to a Advocates argue that individuals rarely narrative around climate change: white men in discussion of alternative routes to justice. choose prostitution as a career and want to see suits. Climate change is an issue created by The workshop also discussed alternative a ban on the use of sexual services enacted their boardroom antics, with discussion forms of justice for violence against women, together with policies to lift individuals out of around climate change also moderated by elite and the difficulty that many face in co- prostitution and prevent others from entering it. white men. Climate change creates poverty, operating with prosecutions brought by the The concern is that implementation will and poverty has a woman’s face, since it is state. It was an informative session, and take time and, in the meantime, sex workers women who are typically left to undertake care provided a valuable space to discuss individual remain vulnerable. Those against the work. Melanie closed the workshop by reciting concepts of ‘justice’ and how to achieve it. It criminalisation of users argue that ‘moral’ Nnimmo Bassey’s poem I Will Not Dance To also directly addressed a theme that permeated legislation, effectively banning the trade of Your Beat. The poem threatens to expose the the whole conference: what is the role of a sexual services between consenting adults, is evil greed of the oil magnates, and denounce radical lawyer? Can lawyers be effective if their not the appropriate forum for addressing those who insist on do-nothing false solutions role is confined to the systems and principles socio-economic change. to climate change, such as carbon offsetting. that are so often oppressive and sexist?

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Migrants and borders: changing the acknowledged that achievements have been dialogue made in Europe through policy and Women political prisoners This very topical workshop which exposed campaigning, however litigation on the issues We hardly hear about female political some of the key concerns on the ground in the is now required. prisoners in conferences. This time was ongoing refugee crisis. Natasha Tsangarides, The erosion of legal aid within the UK different and, thanks to the Haldane Society, who has been volunteering in the Pikpa camp (particularly in England and Wales), the impact the ‘women political prisoners’ workshop an on Lesvos, spoke of how Syrians are of austerity, and more stringent ‘anti- opportunity for me to discuss the situation of considered refugees while other nationalities immigration’ policies present increasing female political prisoners in Iran. are not, and as a result Syrians are being barriers to access to justice. As Angela Davis It is impossible to speak about the female accommodated in better conditions than said during her keynote speech, lawyering political prisoners in Iran without speaking people of other nationalities on the basis that alone may not be enough, but progressive about the Islamic regime and their draconian aid agencies are supporting refugees, ‘not lawyers undertaking work with knowledge laws, which are imposed on millions of migrants’. As a result a rhetoric of ‘deserving’ and understanding of the mass movement/civil Iranians. The revolution in 1979, in which and ‘non-deserving’ refugees has permeated sphere may be more effective. We need to be women played a major role, was hijacked by refugee camps on Lesvos and nationalities are aware of the impact of capitalism on society. Islamists. Soon after, the regime started demonstrating against each other. Open, self- We must work together, use the law, challenge attacking women, initially by imposing the sufficient camps are being created without it, challenge the framework within which it Islamic dress code and this was followed by funding, such as the Pikpa camp which is was created, and think dynamically about how other laws and punishments for those who crowdfunded. we fight. didn’t submit to them. Women showed It was highlighted that many have no access From the conference and workshops there courage and strength through their defiance. to legal advice and have not even been advised was a call for greater collaboration among All aspects of women’s lives, including that they have the right to claim asylum in European lawyers on the issue of migration, their dignity, were continuously attacked, but Greece. The fact that Frontex employees are which is already being pursued in the form of women in Iran could not be easily silenced essentially making decisions on asylum claims the Migrants Network; and for greater and were a driving force in many major at European hotspots is extremely concerning. collaboration amongst lawyers and activists uprisings. During the last 36 years thousands It appears that EU standards are being within the UK in relation to all areas of law of women have been, and are still being, comprehensively eroded. Furthermore, no covered by the conference. Immigration arrested, tortured and executed because of responsibility has been taken for the deaths of practitioners in the UK will be interested to their struggle against the Islamic regime in migrants in Europe. There is an increasingly note that the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Iran. Their voices need to be echoed. Shiva hostile environment towards migrants, Association has created a Scottish Regional Mahbobi ([email protected]) is refugees and those seeking asylum in Europe, Working Group, which aims to lead to greater spokesperson for the Campaign to Free and this needs to be challenged. The workshop collaboration throughout the UK. Political Prisoners in Iran. >>>

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This work by designer and artist Jon Daniel Socialist is installed on the windows and doors of Brixton Advice Centre. It celebrates some of Lawyer the people involved in the building’s radical MagazineoftheHaldane history; it has been a important political, Societyof Socialist Lawyers Number72, February 2016 social and cultural space since the 1970s www.haldane.org and is now an independent law centre. SL72_pp22-27_IWC_reports.qxp_print 14/02/2016 14:32 Page 26

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers International ‘It was astonishing – and t Wo men’s Conference solidarity of the workers an

Reports

Migrant women in the UK Regulation of the porn industry Charlotte Threipland has just launched ‘Are you in favour of bombing Syria? No? A Safe Place to Call Home, a report on the Then you must be a supporter of terrorism’. conditions in which women with uncertain It was, I must admit, an unexpected status in the UK are forced to live with their opening to a workshop on the regulation of children. The AIRE Centre’s Emma Lough pornography. But it made Jane Fae’s point talked about the plight of EEA national rather well: just because you are opposed to women in prison in the UK. a method of dealing with something, does A Safe Place to Call Home was not mean that you endorse the thing to be commissioned jointly by Hackney Law dealt with. Reaching hidden communities Centre and Hackney Migrant Centre and This very much set the tone for the Jeanne Mirer and Jamila Duncan-Bosu gave funded by the Children’s Strategic Legal workshop: that all views were welcome, lazy different insights into ‘hidden communities’ Fund. It looks into the standard of thinking was not, and anyone expecting neat from both sides of the Atlantic. Jeanne – accommodation for women and children answers might have to go elsewhere. who is a well-established lawyer in the provided by London local authorities after a The workshop was broadly split into two labour movement – discussed her work social services assessment. The report halves. In the first half Fae provided a helping to unionise migrant workers in the demonstrates that across 17 London local fascinating account of the history of United States. Given the general hostility in authorities, 64% of the accommodation regulation followed by an analysis of the US law and society towards both trade surveyed had damp and mould, families were current regulatory framework. In the second unions and migrants it was astonishing – and living in rooms below housing law standards half discussion ranged from issues touching – to hear her describe the solidarity and many were statutorily overcrowded. All surrounding ‘revenge porn’ to what counts of the workers and the victories they had families were sharing cooking facilities with as ‘realistic’ and how to define consent. We achieved. others. Such conditions can lead to asthma also explored the problem of discriminatory Jamila specialises in representing victims and eczema as well as stress and anxiety interpretation and enforcement by of trafficking. She gave an informative and affecting the mental health of both mothers prosecutors and police. troubling insight into the legislative and children and lowering the children’s This unique workshop illuminated issues framework that is intended to protect ability to study. that too often disappear in the highly victims of trafficking. She gave the The families were moved frequently and charged debate surrounding pornography. impression of an inefficient and arcane series with no notice, leading to further disruption For me, it was yet another example of the of provisions, which is badly misunderstood from schools, workplaces and support International Women’s Conference by the authorities and designed to make it networks. The report includes a series of providing a space for exploration of under- extraordinarily difficult for trafficked people recommendations to central and local discussed perspectives. to seek justice. government.

Our thanks to Sarah Crawford, James Dunn, Agnieszka Gabrianka-Hin dl Lyndsey Sambrooks-Wright and Virginia Santiniwho wrote and compiled th

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d touching – to hear her describe the and the victories they had achieved.’

Lough described how EEA national Trans*forming society women in prison are deported if they are Roz Kaveney and Natacha Kennedy led found guilty of more than three petty criminal Trans*forming Society, a fascinating offences or receive three sentences of more workshop on the challenges faced by than three months. The Immigration Act transgender women. The state and women’s bodies 2014 means that they can only appeal out-of- Kennedy, a former primary school The patriarchal capitalist system’s violence country against deportation decisions, with teacher, conducts research into transgender and brutality towards women’s bodies and the inevitable difficulties in getting evidence of issues at Goldsmiths College and campaigns rights was a central topic of the International their ties to the UK. Many of these young, for transgender human rights. Kennedy Women’s Conference. Delegates heard about vulnerable women have children in the UK presented her hypothesis that the weakly the breadth of state’s willingness to inflict and the Home Office usually decides that if discursively saturated, but strongly violence on women’s bodies, and how the children can be cared for by either family institutionalised, nature of cultural government authorities and the police or social services they do not need their cisgenderism leads to a culture and ideology frequently fail to intervene when others mothers as carers! The Convention on the that is harmful to trans people and perpetrate abuse and torture: government Rights of the Child, establishing that any particularly trans children. Kennedy argued surveillance operations target female activists decision is to be in the child’s best interests that the pervasive nature of such a culture and trick them into opening up the most and prevent irreversible harm, is ignored. prevents young trans people from becoming private and personal aspects of their lives and The women affected are mainly 19 and fully intelligible to themselves and those bodies to undercover policemen (which 20-year-olds from Eastern Europe and around them. The resulting emotional Helen Steel described as ‘body-hacking’); Portugal. Many have been trafficked by damage to trans teenagers and children can women suffer rape and torture in armed criminal networks who force them to work in be significant. conflicts and highly-militarised societies (for the sex trade and to commit fraud and crimes Kaveney is a writer, critic and poet, which nobody is held to account); refugee under duress. They are penalised for the lack alongside her work as a transgender rights women are systematically abused by both of stability within their families. activist. She is also a founding member of state and non-state actors (which sees women There was a lively discussion about how Feminists Against Censorship and is a subject to forced prostitution, rape, sexual the work of the projects can enhance former deputy chair of Liberty. Kaveney was harassment, social ostracisation and the awareness of the exploitation of migrant instrumental in the production of the Gender xenophobic denial of vital health and women. The AIRE Centre project has only Recognition Act 2004 and spoke in detail maternity care once they reach Europe). been running for eight months and hopes to about the problems in the implementation of Finally, there are hidden abuses of ‘non-state engage communities in its work and to the Act, particularly for those who fall torture’ in the form of sexual abuse of publish statistics. A Safe Place to Call Home outside a binary gender system. Both women and children in the context of can be downloaded online, and has been speakers have spent years combating the patriarchal families, which were also exposed relied on in two cases against Sandwell prejudices faced by transgendered women in the most poignant way by survivor and

District Council. and it was a privilege to hear them speak. activist Elizabeth Gordon. reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture:

in dley, ArthurKendrick,ShivaMahbobi,Wendy Pettifer, FionaMcPhail, ed these reports.

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Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers International Wo men’s Conference

Migrant women battle for access to maternity care Legal barriers are increasingly used in nearly all European countries to deny or restrict migrants’ access to health and welfare services, which particularly affects irregular or undocumented migrants. Rayah Feldman uses the example of policies towards maternity care in 14 European countries to consider the impact of such restrictions and to explore the reasons for them.

The right to health for irregular migrants is maternity care can be viewed as fundamental to limited both in Europe and internationally. universal healthcare. Barriers to maternity care The European Convention on Human Rights for undocumented migrant women may thus be provides for the right to emergency care seen not just as problems for such women, but derived from the requirement to protect the also as an indicator of how well other, less right to life. In relation to maternity care the valued health needs of undocumented people UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are likely to be met. Moreover, the adverse provides for children’s right to access health effects of poor maternity care are visible in poor services including states’ obligation ‘to ensure pregnancy outcomes.

appropriate pre natal and post natal Schmidt Thomas Picture: Migrant women are liable to have higher- ‐ ‐ healthcare for mothers’. Under the Convention risk pregnancies than women from host on the Elimination of Discrimination against communities. Many obstetricians regard all Women, states are also obliged ‘to grant pregnancies among migrant woman as women appropriate services in connection potentially high risk for both social and medical with pregnancy, confinement and the reasons. This is because pregnant migrant post natal period, granting cost free services women in Europe generally experience worse ‐ ‐ where necessary, as well as adequate nutrition pregnancy outcomes than their peers, with during pregnancy and lactation’. However, significantly higher risks of low birth weight, these provisions have limited enforceability, Rayah Feldman, Maternity Action. Rayah took pre-term delivery, and perinatal mortality. their language is imprecise, and there are part in a panel discussion on migrant and Undocumented migrant women, in problems in implementing them within refugee women at the International Women’s particular, face high social risks to their different healthcare systems. Conference, together with Frances Webber, pregnancies stemming from their personal Dr Dorys Quintana Cruz and Dr Marina history and current legal situation. These risks The maternity care needs of migrant Prentoulis. It was chaired by Louise Christian. include poverty and homelessness or precarious women housing and a greater likelihood of having Given that pregnancy and childbirth are widely experienced sexual or other violence including regarded as necessitating special provision, domestic abuse. In addition such women >>>

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>>>may have poor command of the language of the host country, be unfamiliar with its health care systems, and frequently (and often realistically) fear being reported to immigration authorities by healthcare institutions. These factors affect women’s mental health, increasing often pre-existing stress and depression. They can also lead to women entering maternity care much later in pregnancy than is recommended. Migrant women also have higher risks of medical complications in pregnancy due to underlying health conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, HIV and diabetes. Some may also have experienced female genital cutting (FGM). In addition, previous poor obstetric histories may also cause medical complications in the current pregnancy. Some of these conditions will only be identified during maternity care, which is a crucial time during which midwives can highlight and address complex needs to improve the health of women and their families. Indeed, good practice recommendations to address the care needs of women with high-risk pregnancies stress good history taking at their first booking for maternity care, more frequent antenatal appointments, and continuity of care in the same unit, and ideally with the same midwife. But despite the additional health needs of this group of women, many and varied barriers limit access even to those services to which undocumented migrants are entitled. Administrative barriers, incorrect refusals of care due to lack of awareness or discrimination, lack of knowledge about their rights and how to access care on the part of migrants, and fear or risk of detection through service use are major barriers. Financial barriers may also be key if health services are chargeable.

Undocumented migrant women’s access to maternity care in 14 EU countries Our study of policies for maternity care provision for undocumented migrants in 14 of the 15 ‘EU15’ states (member states existing prior to the accession of ten candidate countries in 2004) paints a varied picture of formal provision. We have classified maternity provision for undocumented migrants into four categories: comprehensive health provision including maternity care; limited health provision including maternity care; contradictory policies; and no provision for general health or maternity care. This classification only refers to provision for people without regular access to the health system in the country where they are living. All the countries reviewed have universal healthcare systems financed through compulsory insurance or general taxation. In some countries there is standard co-payment for some or all medical services which may restrict access to people who are destitute. For example, in the UK, although GP treatment and emergency care is currently free at the point of delivery, there is normally co-payment for prescriptions, dental treatment, optical care and a number of other treatments.

Generic barriers to care for undocumented migrants Studies show that even in countries with good or nominal provision, barriers to provision exist. For example, in France this can include

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Formal provision of maternity care in 14 EU member states Comprehensive provision Limited provision including Contradictory policies No provision for general including maternity care: maternity care: (sanctions undermine health care or maternity l France l Belgium benefits of formal provision): care: l Italy l Germany l Austria l Netherlands l UK l Denmark l Portugal l Finland l Spain l Greece l Sweden l Ireland

The following are examples of the provides ‘access to health care that emergency care, but most standard maternity care including services provided in a country in cannot be postponed’ on payment secondary (hospital) care is routine antenatal care, delivery and each of the four categories. of a €6 visit fee. Such care includes chargeable at 150% of the standard postnatal care can be as maternal health care, abortion care standard NHS tariff. Some much as £4,190. Comprehensive provision – and counselling for contraceptives. conditions, notably TB, HIV and France Overall funding is provided by the other sexually transmitted No provision for general health France is the only country surveyed state but local municipalities have infections are also exempt from care or maternity care – Austria that provides almost full services the power to provide further charges. However, ‘immediately There is no entitlement for any for most undocumented migrants. services. necessary’ and ‘urgent care that non-insured people, including AME (Aide Médicale d’Etat – state cannot be delayed’ does not need undocumented migrants, to access medical aid) offers full medical Contradictory policies – UK to be paid in advance of treatment health services except emergency care, free at the point of delivery, The UK has introduced a health though it is still chargeable. All care, which is also subject to for undocumented migrants with surcharge for most people not maternity care is deemed charging. Some conditions such as limited resources who have been ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK ‘immediately necessary’, so in TB treatment and HIV (testing resident over three months. AME entitling them to almost all NHS principle, all maternity care only) are exempt on public health is granted for one year. Applicants care without charge. Ordinary including antenatal care, delivery, grounds. Emergency care includes must provide proof of address and residence is defined as applying and postnatal care is available to childbirth but not general income. Where residence over only to people with indefinite leave undocumented women who will maternity care. Unpaid healthcare three months can’t be proved, to remain (ILR) in the UK if they nevertheless be billed for their bills continue to be payable after a entitlement exists for care deemed are not EEA nationals. Asylum care. person has regularised her urgent. This is also funded by the seekers and refused asylum seekers In addition, hospital trusts are immigration status. state. Maternity care is included as supported by the Home Office are ‘encouraged’ to inform the Home Healthcare for undocumented part of AME and emergency care, entitled to all NHS care and a few Office if an overseas patient owes migrants is virtually dependent on and includes abortion. For non- other ‘vulnerable’ groups such as more than £1,000 for her non-state providers. Some AME emergency care hospitals victims of trafficking or sexual treatment. The Home Office is voluntary organisations provide must confirm patient eligibility. violence. This means that it is likely to refuse any further care to such migrants funded mainly undocumented migrants immigration or visa application in through federal and local grants Limited provision including and short-term visitors who do not such cases unless the debt is paid. and voluntary work by medical maternity care – Sweden pay the visa surcharge who are This sanction, combined with professionals. However both Since 2012 undocumented adults excluded from access to NHS care. high costs of care, acts as a professionals’ and migrants’ lack of have the same limited rights to Current UK policy provides deterrent to women accessing awareness of alternative providers health as asylum seekers. This universal access to primary and maternity care. Charges for can result in very late presentation.

lack of health insurance at any given time, European Union Agency for Fundamental right to access care for ‘serious illness or acute inability to afford out-of-pocket fees, or a Rights has shown that healthcare charges for pain’ if they obtain a Krankenschein (medical failure to qualify for health schemes for the poor people are not cost-effective. In relation insurance card) in advance from social welfare destitute that provide 100% coverage. These to maternity care, the costs of postnatal care offices. These offices have a legal duty to problems arise from the complexity of the for newborns with low birth weight or who report undocumented migrants to the national health insurance system in France. In are premature is much higher than that for Foreigners Office. all countries that do provide care, some full term or normal birth weight babies. In In both of these countries clinicians are patients are unaware of their rights or have countries like the UK and Sweden with exempt from the requirement to report been refused care even if they are entitled to it. healthcare systems funded from general because of their protection through medical Indeed the complexity of, and frequent taxation it is also much more complicated to confidentiality. However, clinicians have little changes to, rules based on immigration status impose charges on particular groups than to autonomy to practise outside national (which may not be clear either to a patient or treat everyone in the same way. bureaucratic health systems, not least because professional) makes it likely that they will be Increasingly governments are seeking to of how payment is organised within health misapplied. strengthen external border controls by care systems. extending them to areas of life inside There is undoubtedly a tension between the From external borders to internal countries of migration. Welfare, including state’s use of public (and in some countries border control health provision, is being used as a major private) institutions to regulate and control We have to look at political rather than means of limiting migrants’ rights, to create migration and migrant activities, and states’ pragmatic factors to explain the complex what Teresa May has called ‘an increasingly obligations under human rights treaties and regulations governing undocumented hostile environment’. Germany and the UK conventions. In the UK the right to healthcare migrants’ access to national health systems. explicitly link their healthcare policies to is rarely raised as part of a defence of migrants’ Imposing charges on people who are unable to immigration controls. The immigration human rights and it would seem that at pay makes little sense, and developing new sanction for NHS debt introduced in the UK present the capacity of states to restrict access administrative regimes for special groups is in 2011 has already been mentioned. In to health is stronger than the claims and cumbersome and expensive. A study by the Germany, undocumented migrants have a provisions of any human rights instruments.

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Wafa Kafarna looks at the results of interviews with women from the Gaza strip who went Gaza through the 2014 war. Over a year after the July-August 2014 Israeli military operation on Gaza, it is clear that women remain profoundly affected by the events. The conflict left more than 2,200 dead The impact and more than 19,000 homes destroyed or uninhabitable. The Norwegian Refugee Council has interviewed women from Gaza and reported on the impact of the operation on of conflict their lives. “I still can’t understand how I didn’t get injured when others died or were injured. I saw the rocket coming down. I can picture it as it on women came down. It was red. It was coming down towards me. This cannot escape my mind. Now if I hear war planes I feel terrified”. At the peak of the conflict, according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 485,000 Palestinians (or 28 per cent of the population) were internally displaced. Only three of the 117 people who took part in the focus group discussions for research by the Norwegian Refugee Council had remained in their homes: the rest were displaced, most of them multiple times. They fled to relatives, friends or neighbours and then to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools. The women talked about their experiences of displacement, and for pregnant women the experience of giving birth while displaced during the conflict. Shireen, who fled her home in Rafah and was staying at an UNRWA school, gave birth during the conflict: “I went alone to the hospital to give birth, and then returned to the UN school with my newborn baby […] We were sleeping on a cardboard box on the floor”. The women participating in this study recalled sharing classrooms with 50-60 people and the struggle to keep the space clean and their children free from disease, as well as issues with privacy for themselves and their daughters. Three of the UNRWA collective centres were hit by Israel on 24th and 30th July and 3rd August 2014, killing 45 people, including 17 children. The attacks led to widespread fear and panic among those sheltering in the schools, and a clear sense among those interviewed that nowhere was safe. Since the 2014 attacks the most pressing concern for many has been the damage to, or destruction of their homes. 48 of the 117 participants interviewed said that they had not yet been able to return home, because their homes had either been destroyed or were not safe to return to. Some whose homes suffered minor damage to their homes have received some assistance. Many others were dealing with the uncertainty as to when they would receive help with rebuilding or repairing their homes so they could return. They wanted more information from agencies. Another priority for women is support for Picture: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: their children. Almost all of the women who >>>

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>>>spoke in the focus groups identified their authorities within Gaza that contribute to the children, grandchildren or other young ongoing conflict, with its resultant impact on relatives as having been profoundly affected by women. the war. They spoke of the children having • Act on recommendations in the UNFPA nightmares linked to their experiences and study to implement psycho-social support for talked of children exhibiting behavioural women and girls where this has not already problems and difficulties studying at school. taken place. This should particularly focus on The women wanted this to be a priority for women in areas that have been particularly those who were looking at providing assistance affected by the war in 2014 and the blockade to families in Gaza. One focus group took such as Khuza’a, Beit Hanoun, Al-Shuja’iyya place in an UNRWA school in the Khan Younis and areas around Rafah. Where possible, the area where psycho-social support is being existing provision of support for children provided through an NGO. One woman should be extended to meet the needs of all talked about her children who are now affected persons and should be linked with receiving counselling: “The children stopped psycho-social support for parents and care- having faith in us as parents. My children can givers to provide an integrated approach for see that their mother can’t protect them. My families. five children clutched on to me during the war • Extend and support programmes by […] We were wondering when we would die. community-based organisations and women’s The children are now getting better”. organisations that provide employment and Unemployment rates in Gaza are at 45 per training to women. Many of these have been cent and 1.3 million people were classified as badly affected by the war and require support being food insecure and vulnerable to food and funding. Small projects that focus on insecurity and therefore it is not surprising that women such as agricultural projects and unemployment and a lack of jobs is a pressing traditional cooking can provide training for concern, with many women expressing their women in essential skills and an opportunity to fears for their children’s futures. One woman support their family financially. said: “There is no work. I have four sons and • Extend programmes of cash for work to they don’t work and so they can’t marry. They provide employment and money for families all live with me in one room”. with dignity. Increasing opportunities for men Based on those findings the Norwegian and women to work outside the home can Refugee Council has made a number of relieve stress on families both financially and recommendations. emotionally and decrease the likelihood of • Increased advocacy efforts in relation to domestic violence. the impact of conflict on women: Advocacy • Take into account the concerns raised by efforts directed towards the Israeli authorities, women about the conditions during the in shadow reports and reports to Special conflict for future contingency planning. While Rapporteurs and to the international noting the various improvements made by diplomatic community, should highlight the UNRWA to the collective centres during and impact on women of Israeli military operations after the conflict, there are some further basic and the destruction of homes. Such efforts protections that could be taken, such as should call for accountability as well as an end ensuring toilets and bathrooms are single-sex to the blockade, which has devastated and improving safety and security in those livelihoods. Case studies collected by NGOs areas by providing locks, better provision for can be effective ways of highlighting this pregnant women, women with newborn impact and the need for accountability and the babies and the elderly and priority allocation of end of the blockade. Advocacy efforts must resources to these groups. While the level of also note the actions of militant groups and the disease and sickness was low considering the Picture: Eduardo Soteras Jalil Soteras Eduardo Picture:

This paper was given as part of the panel session ‘Women in Conflict and Peace’, which featured Alejandra Munoz Valdez, Barbara Spinelli and Dr Alham Beydoun. It was chaired by Siobhan Lloyd.

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magnitude of the conflict, hygiene and be given a full opportunity to be engaged in the cleanliness particularly in bathrooms could be process. further improved to prevent and mimimise the • Devising an appropriate and fair system of risk of illness in crowded environments. priority need for the reconstruction • Continue to ensure the active involvement programme. It is not clear if one exists and of women in decision-making and committees what the process will be for allocating the next in all areas of decision making, including the stages of assistance to those with destroyed running of the shelters, during conflict. As homes. Ensure that women are included and noted in the report, UNRWA did make efforts consulted with during any assessments of need. to ensure equal representation of women in • A recommendation that rights of usage IDP committees in the centres. However the contracts and housing undertakings should perception of some women interviewed was include both the husband and wife as the clearly that more could have been done to named beneficiary of the allocated housing has ensure their voice was heard and their concerns been adopted by UNWRA in order to provide addressed. security of tenure to both partners. This is • Put in place a clear strategy to disseminate extremely positive and it is recommended that information about the Gaza Reconstruction a similar approach is implemented by all Mechanism to both women and men, as well agencies providing new housing in the Gaza as information about assistance for those who Strip. have lost their livelihoods. Existing methods • All INGOs should consider their include the internet and press announcements obligations to ensure security of tenure for and should also include broadcasts on popular women in their shelter and housing radio stations. Women’s CBOs in rural areas programmes. Consideration should be given to provide an existing network to families living whether new homes built in the Gaza Strip in remote and hard-to-reach areas and to with international agency involvement should women who have no access to the internet. be designated to husbands and wives jointly. As Outreach sessions should be conducted with a minimum men and women should be these organisations to ensure that women are informed of options for them and the potential updated regarding the GRM as well as their consequences for them if women are excluded own individual cases. Further, information from the title. disseminated should include information • Establishment of links between Gender- about what assistance is available for those Based Violence and Housing, Land and who have lost their livelihoods as a result of the Property programmes: There are still few links conflict whether in businesses, agriculture or made between GBV and HLP issues and it fishing. appears that the prevalence of GBV increased • Consultation of women in reconstruction during the recent conflict. There are no powers programmes: Ensure that women as well as to exclude violent men from the home and

men are consulted about reconstruction reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: women often lack security of tenure to enable programmes that involve the reconstruction or them to remain in the home in these repair of their homes. Women should also be circumstances. It is recommended that more involved as decision makers and participants in consideration is given to how domestic any plans and proposals for large-scale housing violence/GBV links with women’s lack of projects that will affect them and their security of tenure and what programmes can communities. It is not sufficient to dispense be developed around this issue. This may information to the head of the household and include possible criminal law reform to include expect information to be passed on from and provisions to exclude violent men from their to women in the household. Women have homes as well as measures to increase security different needs and priorities and they should For further information please contact Wafa of tenure for women. Kafarna, ICLA Project Manager – Gaza ([email protected]). The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) provides humanitarian assistance to the residents of the Gaza Strip through a variety of programmes in the areas of Shelter, Education, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Urban Displacement Out of Camps (UDOC), Gender Based Violence (GBV), Child Protection and Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance (ICLA). Through its on-going work and as a result of earlier research studies conducted in the Gaza Strip, NRC has a particular concern about the impact on women of the on-going occupation and periodic conflict and the significant challenges faced by women in accessing their rights.

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Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers International Wo men’s Conference

Rashida Manjoo on how to effectively challenge violence against women Widespread and pervasive violation of our human rights

Introduction numerous human rights. In many parts of the authorities for their failure to protect against As noted in numerous publications emanating world, despite positive institutional and and prevent harm, and also the failure to hold from the United Nations, civil society legislative developments adopted to address perpetrators accountable. organisations and academia, violence against violence against women, I have noted that In 2014, in my reports to the United women is acknowledged as a pervasive and discriminatory laws and practices continue. Nations Human Rights Council and the widespread violation of human rights, which Also, the persistence of patriarchal attitudes General Assembly, I highlighted some of the impedes the realisation of civil, political, towards women, as well as stereotypical continuing and new challenges to effectively social, cultural, economic, and development views regarding what their roles and addressing violence against women. The rights. The consequence is the obstruction of responsibilities should be, further contribute challenges identified include: the shift to the exercise of effective citizenship by women, to the violation of their human rights. The gender neutrality; the persisting public- owing to this human rights violation. Viewing lack of effective accountability measures private dichotomy in responses to violence violence against women through the human results in impunity, both in respect of State against women; the failure of States to act rights and citizenship framework serves to with due diligence in eliminating violence emphasise women’s rights to equality, dignity, against women; the lack of transformative bodily integrity, participation and the exercise remedies that address the root causes of of agency, among others, thus highlighting the violence against women, including individual, importance of women participating as full institutional and structural aspects; the citizens in their families, communities and financial crisis, austerity measures and cuts in country. The realisation of a broad range of social services spending; the shift in human rights which are essential to the understanding of gendered responses and the exercise of full participatory citizenship also move towards a focus on men and boys; and requires an emphasis on the need for States to the lack of a legally binding instrument to

fulfil their responsibilities for preventing and Schmidt Thomas Picture: hold both States and non-State actors responding to violence against women and accountable for this human rights violation, girls, whether such violence occurs in the as a violation in and of itself. public or private spheres. States have an affirmative obligation to Continuing challenges respect, protect and fulfil human rights, Although there has been progress in including fulfilling the responsibility to act Rashida Manjoo is a former UN Special advancing women and girls’ human rights with due diligence to eliminate violence Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its and gender equality at the national, regional against women. Unfortunately, pervasive Causes and Consequences, and is now at the and international level, there are gaps and levels of violence, and a culture of impunity Department of Public Law, University of Cape challenges that have not been adequately for crimes experienced by women, Town, South Africa. She was a keynote speaker addressed. Continuing and new challenges fundamentally jeopardise the realisation of at the Conference. that hamper efforts to promote the >>>

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>>> human rights of women and girls can be women be taken into account, through a lens ultimate duty bearer, to protect women linked largely to the lack of a holistic of indivisibility and interdependency of and girls. approach that addresses individual, human rights. Compromising the resources institutional and structural factors that are a available to women’s groups for service 6. Shift in understanding of gendered cause and a consequence of violence against provision and advocacy undermines responses and the move towards neutrality in women and girls. transformative change efforts. Furthermore, responses the creation of hierarchies of violence against In the past few years, there has been a move 1. Persisting public-private dichotomy in women is problematic. This is particularly away from the understanding of a ‘gender responses to violence against women evident in the articulation of sexual violence focus’ as articulated and understood in The public-private dichotomy is a in conflict situations as being different and international normative frameworks and by manifestation of inequality and exceptional, as opposed to it being a women’s rights activists and organisations. discrimination in responses to violence continuation of a pattern of violence that is Despite numerous studies confirming that against women that ultimately relegates exacerbated in times of conflict. This has led women are disproportionately impacted by women to the private sphere. It is reinforced to the disproportionate focus of attention and violence, the concept of gender neutrality is by the gender pay gap; the ‘double burden’ of resources to the manifestation of violence framed in a way that understands violence as production and reproduction, which often against women in conflict situations, to the a universal threat to which all persons are limits the autonomy of women; and systems detriment and ignoring of the low-level potentially vulnerable. In some contexts, this of guardianship, legal instruments or social ‘warfare’ that women and girls experience in understanding promotes the view that male control systems which are consciously their homes and communities on a daily basis. victims of violence require, and deserve, designed to limit women’s access to the public comparable resources to those afforded to sphere. Even in societies in which women 4. Financial crisis, austerity measures and cuts female victims. This perspective ignores the make sustained and significant contributions in social services spending reality that violence against men does not to the workforce, their roles in public life tend Austerity measures have negatively impacted occur as a result of pervasive inequality and to be curtailed, and issues considered to be of budgets linked to social services spending. discrimination, and also that it is neither particular concern to women are often Also there is deep concern about the systemic nor pandemic in the way that assumed to be private. Violence against weakening of the women’s rights sector violence against women indisputably is. women is no exception to this viewpoint, and, Attempts to combine or synthesise all forms the belief that personal relationships are not a of violence into a ‘gender-neutral’ framework matter of public concern, continues to affect tend to result in a depoliticised or diluted responses in the prevention, reporting and discourse, which abandons the prosecution of cases of violence. transformative agenda. A different set of normative and practical measures is required 2. Failure of States to act with due diligence to to respond to and prevent violence against eliminate violence against women women and, equally importantly, to achieve My 2013 report to the UN Human Rights the international law obligation of Council reiterates that State responsibility to substantive equality, as opposed to formal act with due diligence requires that there is a equality. framework for discussing the responsibility of states through a dual lens of individual due Conclusion diligence and systemic due diligence. The international community explicitly Individual due diligence refers to the acknowledged violence against women as a obligations that States owe to particular human rights issue when it adopted the individuals, or groups of individuals, Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action including to prevent, protect, punish and at the World Conference on Human Rights in provide effective remedies. Individual due 1993. Standard setting developments, such as diligence places an obligation on the State to General Recommendations 12, 19 and 30 of assist victims in rebuilding their lives and the Convention on the Elimination of all moving forward, and also in addressing Forms of Discrimination Against Women protection and socio-economic needs. (CEDAW) and the Declaration on the Systemic due diligence refers to the Elimination of Violence against women, obligations that States have to ensure a promote an understanding of violence against holistic and sustained model of prevention, women as a form of discrimination. These

protection, punishment and reparations for reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: ‘soft law’ developments have assisted in acts of violence against women and girls. providing visibility to a hidden problem, but State responsibility to act with due diligence resulting from funding cuts for core service have not been sufficient in addressing requires States to punish not just the provision, including legal, policy and accountability and effective redress for perpetrators, but also those who fail in their advocacy work. Furthermore, cuts in funding violations. It is my view that it is time to duty to respond to the violation. to non-governmental organisations, as a form consider the adoption of a United Nations of reprisal against the work of women human binding international instrument on violence 3. Lack of transformative remedies that rights defenders, is also of concern. against women and girls, with its own address the root causes of violence against monitoring body; or alternatively the women 5. Lack of a legally binding instrument adoption of an Optional Protocol to CEDAW, Transformative remedies require that the In my reports I have highlighted the existence with its own monitoring body. Such an problem of violence against women is of a normative gap under international human instrument and monitoring body would acknowledged as a widespread and systemic rights law in respect of violence against ensure that States are held accountable to issue, and not as an individualised issue. It women and girls. The approach of States is standards that are legally binding; it would also requires a recognition that this violation one of ‘normativity without legality’ and this provide a globally applicable comprehensive requires specific measures to address it as a is reflected in the endorsement of principles by normative framework for the protection of gender-specific human rights violation. In my states, through declarations and resolutions, women and girls from all forms of violence; it 2011 report to the UN Human Rights but without the development and adoption of would have a specific monitoring body to Council, I articulate a gender-specific and specific binding legal commitments as regards substantively provide in-depth analysis of holistic framework, which must include violence against women. My 2014 report to both general and country-level developments; protection, prevention and empowerment the UN Human Rights Council addresses this and it would serve an educative function for approaches. Responses in laws, policies and issue and raises crucial questions about State States in the translating of international programmes require that the historical, responsibility to act with due diligence, and normative standards into national laws, current and future realities of the lives of also the responsibility of the State, as the policies and programmes.

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Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers International Wo men’s Conference

One of the workshops at the conference showed how fighting for gender equality helps the struggles for abortion rights, reports Virginia Santini Our right to choose: challenging the State’s control over women’s bodies

In anti-abortion laws we see the violence that punish the woman herself. There are many the State and the legal system inflicts on more examples of this abuse across the world. women’s bodies, and – by extension – on There is a constant threat that those abortion women’s rights, voices and lives. The notion rights won might be stripped from women by that the Irish government can forcefully conservative, neoliberal and misogynistic induce a woman who wants an abortion into governments. There have been attempts in the labour against her will and legally commit a USA as well as in Spain via the former Partido physical assault on her – as in the recent case Popular led government in 2013 and there has of Miss Y in Ireland – highlights the extent to been a rise of anti-choice campaigns in which physical and psychological violence Scotland after the devolution of abortion law. against women is normalised and to which, in The abortion rights workshop focused on the Irish context, is also firmly entrenched in how struggles for abortion rights must be the country’s legal framework. The 8th understood and fought from a feminist Amendment to the Irish constitution puts the perspective. The right to access abortion is not rights and status of a foetus on the same level just a medical or a legal issue, it is a feminist as those of a living and sentient woman, and issue and it concerns the fundamental right of that frames the sexist and oppressive anti- a woman to choose what she does with – and abortion laws in Ireland and the misogynistic what is done to – her body. The workshop at attitudes that prevail in Irish political and the International Women’s Conference legal institutions. In Poland, women are (IWC)’s consensus was that it is only by stigmatised and isolated for seeking an fighting for greater gender equality in societies abortion through legislation that criminalises across the world that we protect universal every person in a woman’s support network access to abortion services and advance who attempts to help her obtain a women’s liberation and security. termination, even though the country’s Sinead Kennedy from Coalition to Repeal criminal justice system does not directly the 8th Amendment explained the >>>

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>>>development of abortion rights activism Anti-choice legislation is inextricably in both the North and South of Ireland from linked with the struggle for gay rights in the 1970s until the present day. The Ireland, as both represent a direct challenge to inclusion of the 8th Amendment in the Irish the influence exerted by the Catholic church constitution led to landmark cases that over the Irish State and society. The church has exposed how – in practice – the constitution played a significant role in the dissemination enabled the Irish government to control of misinformation and anti-choice women’s bodies and lives in an extreme and propaganda for decades). Both struggles brutal way. Examples include the X case, in demonstrate the struggle for sexual freedom which the government won an injunction and resistance to the traditional patriarchal preventing a 14-year-old rape victim from family structure, which is vital to the survival traveling to England to abort an unwanted of the capitalist economic system. Participants pregnancy, and the recent tragic death of considered whether repealing the 8th Savita Halappanavar, who was denied a life- Amendment could be achieved through a saving abortion following complications referendum, as with the successful campaign with her pregnancy owing to the inability to legalise gay marriage. and unwillingness of Irish doctors to Anti-abortion laws have a class dimension. terminate a pregnancy even out of necessity They are linked to austerity, which to save a woman’s life. Sinead discussed the disproportionately affects women. As Mara popular uproar that Savita’s death triggered Clarke from Abortion Support Network and the subsequent limited changes to Irish pointed out, the majority of women who are law, which included a provision for abortion affected by Ireland’s criminalisation of

in the highly restrictive circumstances where abortion are the most vulnerable: working reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: a woman’s physical health and life is at risk. class women; refugees; minors and the Sinead explained that this has resulted in a homeless. These are also the individuals who cruel system where a woman who wants an are most severely affected by austerity. In abortion where her mental health is at risk Mara’s powerful words: ‘women with money has to go before a panel of three doctors to have options and women without money have prove that she is suicidal. babies’. Anna Gall from Ciocia Basia, a German- One of the most interesting discussions based campaign group that works closely focused on the moral arguments for and with Polish women, described a very similar against abortion and divisions that exist even situation in which abortion is completely within the pro-choice movement. The inaccessible and public opinion in Poland is, workshop questioned how the focus on the for the most part, hostile, which perpetuates legalisation of abortion only in cases of rape, a cycle of oppressive legislation and limits on incest and fatal foetal abnormality rather than public space for feminist campaigners to calling for reproductive rights to be accessible challenge sexism in law and public life. for all women in every circumstance and The group discussed how restrictions on without the need for justification damages the abortion access are based on controlling cause of women’s liberation. The group women’s lives and their role in society. debated whether identifying ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Speakers highlighted the failure to provide abortions perpetuates the moralistic and sexist comprehensive sexual and reproductive attitudes. Rather than focusing on extreme education in schools both north and south of cases pro-choice activists should promote the the Irish border and the inadequate idea that access to abortion is about providing availability of information on safe sex and a basic and fundamental healthcare service to effective contraception. It was noted that women and focus on a woman’s right to restricting access to abortion goes hand-in- choose in any circumstance. Focusing on the hand with restricting women’s sexual most extreme and heart-wrenching cases freedom and maintaining patriarchal and encourages judgments about women’s capitalist ideas on women’s roles in society. motivations and imply that other people can have a say over whether a woman has a good enough reason for wanting an abortion. Access to abortion can be empowering. Focusing on tragic cases can reduce women to victims of circumstance and violence, rather than agents with control over their bodies and lives. Finally, the ways in which lawyers and activists have circumvented restrictive anti- abortions laws in creative and challenging ways was also discussed in the workshop. Examples included the ‘abortion train’, which enabled illegal abortion pills to enter the Republic of Ireland through Northern Ireland. Another example of direct action and solidarity were the 200 activists who signed a letter asking to be prosecuted for having had or assisted someone else to have an illegal abortion in reaction to the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland’s decision to prosecute a mother in Northern Ireland for helping her 16-year-old daughter obtain the abortion pill. Anna Gall discussed the ways in which human rights law can be used to advance the case for abortion. She said it is

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important for pro-choice activists to define and conceptualise access to abortion as a human right and use mechanisms such as the European Convention on Human Rights to challenge restrictive anti-choice legislation. The day after the IWC closed its discussions, the High Court in Belfast ruled that Northern Ireland’s abortion laws constitute a human rights violation and maintained that abortion should be accessible in cases of rape, incest and foetal fatal abnormality. Although it is only a small step in the right direction to achieving universal free, safe and legal abortions in Ireland and Northern Ireland we must acknowledge the victory for women’s rights that this decision represents, and how much it vindicates the arguments that pro-choice activists, feminists and socialists have made for decades. However, it is still only the beginning. We ultimately work to live in a society in which a woman’s relationship with her body is her own and in which no woman has to justify or explain taking control of her life. The abortion workshop ended with a spirit of resistance, reflecting the wider sentiment surrounding the IWC, and particularly the feeling that the fight is on against sexism in the context of an oppressive and exploitative global capitalist system. The struggle for abortion rights is inextricably linked to the fight for women’s liberation, to the struggle against male ownership of women’s bodies and to the desire to dismantle the patriarchal family system which breeds both economic and gender oppression. The spirit of the abortion rights sessions at the IWC was that we must unite the struggle for abortion rights with other feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist campaigns and we must demand the right to choose what we do with our bodies, our sexuality and our lives without apology. If not now, when for women in Ireland, Poland and beyond?

Please donate to Abortion Support Network to help women from Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man access vital funds to access abortions in England. If you are interested in finding out more about how we can show our solidarity with comrades in Ireland fighting for abortion rights please contact the author at [email protected].

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The Black Sash was founded on 19 May 1955 by Jean Sinclair, Ruth Foley, Elizabeth McLaren, Tertia Pybus, Jean Bosazza, and Helen Newton-Thompson. They initially campaigned against the removal of the mixed- race voters (known as ‘coloured’ in South Africa) from the voters’ roll in the Cape Province. The ‘Black Sash’ was adopted to mark the mourning of the death of the South African constitution as the apartheid regime rolled out into every aspect of life. They used the privilege of white skin to protest in ways that the black community could not. The first protest in 1955 saw 2,500 white women march in silence across Johannesburg. The photographs show how conventional and middle-class some of the women appeared to be, unlike many female demonstrators today. Images of protests and vigils from the 50s show the women in their Sunday best lined up in neat rows. Later they added a rose to the black sash, and a book representing the constitution, which emphasised their ‘feminine’ orientation and non-violent philosophy. The movement at first had a very liberal and moralistic feel, but this was to change. The Black Sash held regular vigils outside parliament and, compared to black protesters, were initially treated with kid gloves by the police. However, many women faced condemnation from their own communities and it was not unusual for Black Sash women to be physically attacked by other whites. Many women joined Black Sash in secret: their husbands were not aware that they were protesting or assisting black communities when they were meant to be cleaning the house. The movement also believed in practical solidarity and provided legal clinics staffed by volunteer caseworkers, with qualified lawyers donating pro bono hours to take cases to courts or labour boards. Most dealt with the hated ‘pass laws’. The offices were busy and reports for the Johannesburg advice centre from August 1975 showed that the caseworkers conducted an average of 22.2 client interviews per day. They dealt with problems that are unimaginable now: South African bureaucracy had taken obfuscation The white women and Kafkaesque delays to new levels. The random upturning of people’s lives was part of the organised and deliberate harassment of the black population. who stood up to Case studies from 1976 paint a horrific picture of the pass laws. For example, Mr NSB’s wife died, and he was told by the superintendant that he would lose his house if he did not marry again. He duly married but be counted in his new wife was refused permission to live with him. Mrs PEN had a 15-year-old child who had been in Johannesburg with her since he was four years old. After 10 years of South Africa investigation he was refused permission to live with her and was not given permission to live anywhere else. Mr AN was a paraplegic who was cared for by his two aunts in the township of Alexandria. He was refused permission to live with them as their employment was in central Johannesburg. Mr MEL has a job as a clerk, and was refused registration as there are The ‘Black Sash’ movement fought Apartheid with too many clerks in Johannesburg. Success rates in resolving these cases were protests, advice and other practical solidarity. low as there was little chance of justice in apartheid South Africa, and many of workers Rheian Davies looks at the group whose role simply gave up in the face of incomprehensible decisions and delays. However, the Black Sash was recognised by Nelson Mandela on his release.

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The more the women engaged with the problems of apartheid the more political they became, rejecting ‘cosmetic reforms’ to administrative systems.

did win both legal and practical victories speaking to audiences about the atrocities that Apartheid. By the 1980s laws were passed to outside the law, such as persuading business were not reported in the press. limit protests to one person outside parliament. owners to do the right thing in spite of the They campaigned on housing and food Members of Black Sash stood alone outside authorities. They also provided a bail fund, poverty and on all other aspects of apartheid parliament and other government offices on a mostly for women, so that children would not regime such as torture, terrorism laws, regular basis. They would also leave giant black be left unattended when one or both their internment and the repression of protest. The sashes hanging from government buildings or parents were arrested. Between 1960 and 1980 more they engaged with the problems of on steps where events were due to take place. there were more than two million pass law apartheid, the more political they became: They also took to the practice of ‘ghosting’ or convictions. They carried on with their advice rejecting ‘cosmetic reforms’ to administrative ‘haunting’: single white women would follow clinics despite lack of funding and burnout of systems. They never stood on a socialist government ministers to official openings and volunteers (which are still familiar problems to platform, although many individuals were functions and stand by them in silence, always us), and in the face of the mightiest state socialists who saw that the end of apartheid wearing their black sash. They also entered machineries ever assembled. alone would not end discrimination and government buildings and silently followed By the 1960s the Black Sash had lost much oppression. However, they did not limit government ministers around, which was of its moral overtones and ran political themselves to democratic demands and called surprisingly effective at perturbing these men: campaigns about the effect of apartheid laws. for minimum incomes, housing and healthcare the same men who had no qualms about sending Their Charter for Women shows how basic – and supported the ANC Freedom Charter. in tanks against children or torturing detainees. such as the right to live with the family – were They moved away from white-middle class Forty years of the Black Sash as a resistance denied to African women. They also tried to membership and reached out to black women’s movement came to an end with the prick the consciousness of the white organisations such as the African National dismantling of apartheid. Its role was population – leaflets showed re-settlement Congress Women’s League and Cape recognised by Nelson Mandela on his release camps with accommodation for families ‘the Association to Abolish Passes for African from prison. They took part in the talks that size of your study carpet’. The state peddled the Women, and their recruitment material shows led to the truth and reconciliation commission. lie of ‘separate but equal’. So effective was the that they were aiming for multi-ethnic The organisation was reformed in 1995 as a state control of information that, while much membership. non-racial social justice organisation and today of the white population knew that the black By the 1970s members of Black Sash were it still runs legal clinics, recognising that the end population were poorer, they did not know the regularly arrested and detained and their of apartheid has still left behind a South Africa extent of the poverty or harassment. The families were harassed by the state, although of poverty and inequality. movement monitored or witnessed arrests and they experienced better treatment because of the demolition of communities, and their their white skin. More repressive laws were Rheian Davies is a solicitor at DH Law. For more physical presence gave them authority when passed to quell the growing protest against information see www.blacksash.org.za

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convictions to be investigated in ‘National April 2012, refer the convictions to the Court of Appeal? security my On 9th December 2015 Steve Rotheram MP and Andy Burnham, then Shadow Home arse’ Secretary, led a parliamentary debate. They asked the ‘United We Stand’ by Neil Gore, government to release all the files with music by John Kirkpatrick, relating to the charges, trials, and produced by Townsend convictions of the Shrewsbury Productions. Bussey Building/CLF Pickets in 1973/4. On 16th Art Cafe, Peckham, November 2015 December 2015 Tomlinson directly petitioned the government United We Stand is a new play by to pardon his conviction of more Neil Gore about the Shrewsbury than forty years’ vintage. He 24. It was directed by Louise delivered a petition to Number Townsend, whose two-man 10, bearing 100,000 signatures in production had energy, character support. He also called for the and passion. publication of documents relating It told the story of the famous to the prosecution, which are not trial of 24 builders who were due to be released to the public prosecuted for picketing offences until 2021. Their present in 1972. It focused on two of retention is justified, Oliver those men: Des Warren and Letwin announced, on the picket-turned-actor Ricky grounds of national security. Tomlinson (Bobby Grant in Tomlinson, now aged seventy- Brookside; DCI Charlie Wise in four, quipped, “National security? Cracker; Jim Royle in The Royle and Kenneth O’Shea were found work and reasonable pay. Building My arse.” Family). guilty of unlawful assembly and work was dangerous. Conditions The campaign committee set The Shrewsbury pickets were received suspended sentences. were often toxic – both on site and up by several of the convicted men who struggled to earn a living The play explored the human politically. In the 1970s, building Shrewsbury pickets had a strong as builders in the 1960s and story behind the Shrewsbury 24. workers faced the most dangerous presence in the audience. At the seventies. In 1972, for the first In 1973 Ricky Tomlinson, who working conditions in the UK, and press night there were rabble- time, there was a national had joined the flying pickets at for the poorest wages. They were rousing speeches from Len builders’ strike in support of a Shrewsbury the previous year, the least visible group among blue- McCluskey and Tom Watson MP. weekly wage and the abolition of was sentenced to two years’ collar workers. They were in need The pickets happened, and the the ‘lump’ system of casual labour. immediate imprisonment. He had of leadership, direction and trials took place, not very far from The way in which the strikers been found guilty of a public organisation. When they achieved where I went to school in exercised their freedom of order offence recorded as that in 1972 they were put on trial Shropshire. The strikers’ protests association led to police ‘conspiracy to intimidate’. He for it. and prosecutions were part of the involvement: arrests, charges, served sixteen months’ and was While there are some modern- syllabus. This is living history. The prosecutions – and convictions. released in 1975. He was later day parallels (zero-hours CCRC will (shortly?) rule on The pickets were charged with given honourary freedom of the contracts and the struggle for a whether the justice administered conspiracy, which arose from a city of Liverpool. living wage) one major difference at the time should bear appellate joint union meeting held on 31st The play was an entertaining – is that in the 1970s, when these scrutiny. August 1972 in Chester, at which and convincing – portrayal of the men faced trial, workers’ rights Perhaps the last word should many of the 24 had been present. alliances and conflicts between had no currency in Parliament. go to John Platt-Mills QC. He Des Warren and his five co- the men and the police, and Now, however, all major parties defended Des Warren at defendants were charged with among themselves. It featured claim to stand for workers’ rights. Shrewsbury Crown Court in conspiracy to intimidate, unlawful several poems that Tomlinson Forty-two years later their October 1973. He wrote in his assembly and affray. The trial wrote while he was a serving convictions sustain the autobiography, published in lasted for thirteen weeks. Three prisoner. The script broke off into Shrewsbury 24 Campaign, which, January 2002, Muck, Silk and men were convicted of all three music with several 1970s popular seeks to overturn what it contends Socialism: Recollections of a Left- charges: Des Warren (sentenced to and political songs arranged and were the unjust prosecutions and wing Queen’s Counsel: three years’ imprisonment); Ricky sung by renowned folk musician convictions of building workers. ‘The trial of the Shrewsbury Tomlinson (sentenced to two John Kirkpatrick. The play was a timely reminder pickets is the only case I know of years’ imprisonment) and John The play was a vivid (and, if it that we await the decision of the where the government has ordered McKinsie Jones (sentenced to nine ever matters to creative drama) Criminal Cases Review a prosecution in defiance of the months’ imprisonment). The historically plausible snapshot Commission. Will the CCRC, advice of senior police and remaining three men, John into the lives of those 24 men: the which was presented with prosecution authorities.’ Carpenter, John Elfyn Llywarch pressures they faced to get reliable petitions for the safety of the Abigail Bright

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ending. Jeremy Hutchinson’s appointment, and I met Tom The ABC case had charged two postscript, written at age 99, himself over a delightful impromptu investigative journalists and an ex- condenses into eleven pages not dinner at Owen Davies’ flat in the soldier with illegal possession of only some brilliant insights into the Temple. Some twenty years our military official secrets. As Jeremy’s art of advocacy but a bravura junior, Tom prodded us for our withering cross-examination of the defence of the rule of law and access reminiscences of starting at the Bar Crown’s witnesses demonstrated, to justice. ‘All that stands between in the seventies. For us, as for these so-called secrets were in fact the citizen and the all-powerful Jeremy, our only ‘advocacy training’ easily available to any member of the state’ he writes ‘is the judiciary, the was from our pupil supervisors and public who wished to find out about jury and the wholly independent ‘in the cauldron of the London them. Tom Grant’s retelling shows advocate. To undermine the ability magistrates courts’. We too would how important it is that the courts, of the advocate to practise, to arrive early to observe ‘the mood and not the government, should be remove the advocate’s independence and character of the person who the final arbiter of what constitutes and access to the public, is the first was to judge my client: their the national interest. Jeremy did a act of the autocrat.’ prejudices, qualities and great public service when, playing a He was a founder of the deficiencies’. hunch, he casually asked the Old Criminal Bar Association in 1969 We agreed with Jeremy’s Bailey’s clerk of the lists whether and writes with special authority observations on jury advocacy. The they had difficulty in getting jurors when he charges both political advocate should have ‘a deep to serve on such ‘security’ cases. Oh parties with undermining the rule of interest in human nature. Juries are no, the clerk assured him, not since law. Blair, ‘an arrogant and power- remarkably conscientious: they prosecuting counsel had asked for A law unto hungry politician’, and Blunkett, respond to pleas for fairness, for the names and addresses of potential ‘his autocratic and oppressive courage, for independence and the jurors for vetting purposes. Home Secretary’ abolished the overcoming of prejudices, especially Hutchinson expressed his himself: vital office of Lord Chancellor ‘on a when there is a need to resist the indignation to the judge in open whim’, without giving proper pressures of an interfering judge’. court. Crown counsel frankly reading thought to what should replace it: Though trials may have moments of acknowledged having requested the ‘[T]he modern ‘acceptable’ drama: ‘The fundamental difference information ‘to complete the checks ‘Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case replacement turns out to be but a between actor and advocate must which are normal in cases of this Histories’ by Thomas Grant QC, puny shadow of the past: enter Mr never be forgotten: whereas the sort. Anyone known to be disloyal ISBN 9781444799736, published by Grayling, whose job before actor must lose himself and become would obviously be disqualified’. John Murray. Hardcover £19.99. entering Parliament is recorded as somebody else, the advocate must Obviously! ‘management consultant’, a always be him or herself. To copy or The judge was unfazed and It is not every day that one gets the transient workaday politician on adopt the mannerisms or conduct of allowed the trial to continue. chance to talk with a centenarian, his way up the political ladder […] someone else in court is at once to However, the jury was discharged let alone the best criminal barrister with no experience of the law, no lose all credibility’. when it later emerged that four of the 1960s, seventies and eighties. knowledge of how the criminal Even with Tom’s reassurance jurors had previously signed the Jeremy Hutchinson argued the process works, no understanding that Jeremy would be absolutely Official Secrets Act and one, the most important civil liberties cases of the delicate checks and balances charming, I still felt rather nervous foreman, had served in the SAS. of the post-war era: he called EM we have put in place over the last at meeting him. He swiftly put me These revelations seemed shocking Forster as a star witness; he grew fifty years to bring justice to all at ease and we fell into one of the enough to us at the time but up knowing T.S. Eliot, Lytton people, in the exercise of his most delightful conversations I have governments have since developed Strachey, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant ‘management skills’ he has ever had. more sophisticated ways to bypass and the Bloomsbury Set; he had deliberately destroyed the present We talked about his enthusiasm constitutional protections. been married to left-wing actress system and in doing so in all for taking on the establishment, Unsurprisingly Jeremy is staunchly Dame Peggy Ashcroft and was even probability the proper functioning born of vivid recollections of the opposed to ‘special advocates’, once a member of the Haldane of the criminal Bar’. hunger marches of the 1930s, ‘secret courts’ and ‘closed materials’. Society (as noted with disapproval ‘This process of destruction has making him determined that there He is equally appalled at attacks in his MI5 file). been managed by a minister of should never be a return to such on legal aid and contemptuous of All of which would give reason justice whose official oath requires times. The post-war spirit of bean-counting attempts to quantify enough to want to meet the subject him ‘to respect the rule of law’ and wanting to change British society the job of the advocate, noting from of Thomas Grant QC’s brilliantly ‘defend the independence of the had led him to stand for Labour in experience: ‘Types of offence can written Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case judiciary’ and ‘to ensure the 1945 in the unwinnable never measure the seriousness of an Histories. I remember admiring provision of resources for the constituency of Westminster, even offence […] The skill required Hutchinson in action in the ‘ABC’ efficient and effective support of canvassing 10 Downing Street. He cannot be measured in the number trial (R v Aubrey, Berry & the courts’’. initially joined the Haldane Society of documents involved or the hours Campbell (1978)), where his I wrote to tell Tom Grant how but left to join the Society of Labour of work required’. scathingly charming advocacy had much I admired both his writing Lawyers when it was set up by A teacher falsely accused of exposed the government’s secret and his subject. Would there be any Gerald Gardiner, who was to lead assault by a child, a black student practice of jury-rigging. chance I could talk to Lord him in the Lady Chatterley trial stopped and searched at night and It’s not a whodunit, so I won’t Hutchinson myself? With his before going on to become Lord having drugs planted by a dishonest upset the reader if I give away the generous help I made an Chancellor. police officer, a civil servant >>>

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Reviews

>>> falsely charged with indecency ‘To save many millions of Tom Grant has trawled through alone should be required reading in a public lavatory may all be pounds the Ministry of Justice has Jeremy’s own files to produce an for every politician and civil servant involved with a minor offence, yet only to attend to another area of its excellently researched account of who is considering tampering any each faces devastation and requires responsibility: the crisis in our cases ranging from freedom of further with the delicate machinery an advocate of the highest skill to intolerably overcrowded prisons. expression, like Lady Chatterley, of justice, as well as every student bring justice and salvation. The prison population has now Last Tango, The Romans in Britain and practitioner of law. It ends: Tom Grant has spent many hours grown to over 85,000 […] Each of and Fanny Hill, to security related ‘My profession has given me the talking with senior barristers who these prisoners costs the taxpayer issues like George Blake, the most rewarding, enthralling and were led by Jeremy in their younger an average of over £40,000 a year Profumo cases of Vassall and happy working life and I am sad to years. The insights they gained from to keep. The ‘warehousing’ and Christine Keeler, to ‘Secret Society’ write this valediction. My words his approach to clients and evidence humiliation of offenders in grossly cases against CND’s anti-nuclear may be described by some people have left an indelible mark on their full and inhuman conditions make weapons campaigners and, under as those of a ‘foolish, fond old professional lives. Perhaps one of his meaningful education, constructive the heading of ‘Eccentrics and Folk- man’; the silence of the senior most important lessons is: ‘Time work, rehabilitation and self- Heroes’ to the temporary judiciary and in particular of the spent with a client before trial is respect impossible’. misappropriation of the Duke of Lord Chief Justice gives some never wasted’. In times when QCs He concludes: ‘Real prison Wellington (R v Bunton) and the credence to this view. Nevertheless rarely visited clients in prison before reform calls for imagination, cases of the noted art forger Tom I hope that this book will interest trial, he was an exception. courage and determination; the Keating and the drug-smuggling and amuse the reader – and be a A strong critic of inhumane dismantling of legal aid a mere con artist Howard Marks. warning too’. prison conditions, as he points out: stroke of the pen’. Jeremy’s personal postscript Richard Harvey

subject, is divided into two parts. consent, and the rest is history. culminating in a review of the Part I drills ‘horizontally’, Except, of course, history is concept of the rule of law and its exploring the development of law not a linear path, as Sedley makes significance for the future of at particular historical moments, clear. He gives an overview of the English public law. As might be while part II adopts a ‘vertical’ twists and turns taken by public expected, Sedley illustrates his approach, taking a series of legal law in the ensuing centuries, arguments by reference to case and constitutional themes and always with an eye on the shifting law on a wide range of topics. tracing their historical origins and balance of power between However, as befits its importance, evolution into the debates of today. parliament, executive and he repeatedly uses national Although it glances backwards judiciary. Approaching the security as a focus for his to Magna Carta and beyond, the present day, he argues that the exploration of the role and collection focuses its attention on fundamental characteristic of the parameters of public law, looking the period between the Tudor 20th Century was a dominant in particular at the regulation of monarchies and the present day. executive, weak parliament and state surveillance (or lack thereof) For me the historical entry point of newly quiescent judiciary. This and the increased use of secret the book was the striking, and was to change when, towards the evidence. The influence exerted initially counterintuitive, end of the century, the judiciary by the security services also ‘Test drillings’ proposition that it was during the became more active and public causes him to question the reign of Henry VIII that the law enjoyed a renaissance, due at viability of our traditional into the rule transfer of power away from the least in part to lawyers such as tripartite conception of the state monarch gained momentum. Sedley himself. However, as we and the separation of powers. of judges Although he emerged victorious are now painfully aware, the Looking to the future Sedley from his power struggle with the resurgence of judicial review did considers whether another shift is Catholic Church, Henry VIII relied not go unnoticed, and it now underway, ushering in a new ‘Lions Under The Throne’ on Parliament to enact legislation finds itself under attack. constitutional model, built on the by Stephen Sedley. ISBN not only to raise taxes but also to Part I of this book enriched my rule of law, which does not 9781107559769. Published by legitimise his attempts to seize understanding of the role of assume the ultimate deference of Cambridge University Press, £64.99 power from the Pope and the public law within our the judiciary to parliament on hardback, £25.99 paperback monasteries. This in turn helped to constitutional system and laid the fundamental constitutional legitimise the authority of foundation for part II, which issues. The chances of such a re- Lions under the Throne takes its Parliament as the dominant source compellingly traces the influence alignment are not assessed in this title from Francis Bacon’s of law. As Sedley describes, the and echoes of history in the book, although its historical injunction that judges should be following century-and-a-half saw constitutional issues facing us perspective might encourage the ‘lions, but yet lions under the the rise and fall of republicanism in today. The thematic essays in part reader to countenance the throne’; for Sedley the ambiguity England, the Restoration and in II cover a lot of ground, possibility. If the rule of law does of the image characterises both the due course the Glorious encompassing constitutional come to be acknowledged as our history of public law and the Revolution and Bill of Rights. By concepts (the royal prerogative; guiding constitutional principle controversy that continues to the end of the seventeenth century the separation of powers), aspects the image of a subordinate surround it. This collection of the Bill of Rights had set out the and principles of public law (the judiciary (lions or not) may be essays, described by the author as terms by which William and Mary right to be heard; standing; public consigned to history. a series of ‘test drillings’ into the were to rule, namely by ‘popular’ law and human rights) and Kate Stone

46 Socialist Lawyer February 2016 SL72_pp44-47_reviews.qxp_print 14/02/2016 14:38 Page 47

Reviews

which the state affects people’s environment and providing lives. They are, and will continue education to women who may for many years yet, to be highly not have had the opportunity to influential. The book learn in the classroom demonstrates that the working environment. She makes it clear class is strong, active, forward- that, with trade unions thinking and its force should be increasingly under threat, there is noticed. a risk that many working class The first of the interviews is people will miss out on the with Betty Tebbs, age 97. It educational opportunities that reveals a woman who has been they deserve. driven by principles and a desire The second half of the book is for change throughout her life. a collection of Hyland’s own Confronted at the age of 14 with articles from 1988 to 2014. Her the realities of an unequal early articles focus on the workplace, Betty joined her trade hardship and difficulties faced by union and fought, successfully, for the Irish community in Britain in equal pay. The Second World War the 1980s and 1990s. She shaped the direction of Betty’s documents the stereotypes that energy and she became a lifelong the Irish in Britain Representation campaigner for peace. Balancing Group worked to overcome, the community action with rights of prisoners for which motherhood, Betty describes how Bernadette McAliskey fought and this lifestyle was not always easy. the significant injustice that Kate Rushing home from work to feed Magee experienced when arrested her children and husband before under the Prevention of Terrorism rushing out again to attend a Act. Her later articles draw meeting only to return home late attention to the importance of must have been hard. However, trade unions and learning as a Betty has witnessed huge lifelong process. She also successes in her political work documents her interviews with despite this ‘juggling’. In the famous and highly regarded 1950s she organised a campaign northern female writers and against council house rent actors including Sally Wainwright increases (which she successfully (writer of Last Tango in Halifax) halved). She has also helped set up and Maxine Peake. a battered women’s refuge. By the Hyland’s collection of 1980s she was travelling interviews and articles deserves a Inspiring interviews and worldwide as chair of the place on the bookshelf of anyone National Assembly of Women. In with an interest in politics and, articles about fighting back the 1980s she led the British perhaps more importantly, in contingent of 150 peace activists ‘getting things done’. All of her on an international delegation to interviewees are inspiring to men ‘Northern ReSisters: been part of over the last 40 years. Libya. and women alike. They Conversations with Radical The interviews draw the reader in Betty’s interview sets the tone demonstrate the achievements Women’ by Bernadette Hyland to the ordinary lives of some for the remainder of the book. that are possible through ISBN 987-0-9932247-0-6. extraordinary women and The reader is introduced to sustained hard work and Published by Mary Quaile Club provide a brief but welcome women who have fought to save dedication to a cause. Each insight into the significant work the NHS, challenge the Bedroom interview concludes with a short Bernadette Hyland’s short and that is taking, and always has Tax and run a bookshop stocking piece of advice for the next highly accessible book is a must- taken, place in our northern political materials, to give just generation of political activists. read for current and aspiring communities. some examples. There is an There is too much sound advice political activists. Set out in a It would be wrong to think impressive variety to each to reproduce it all here. However, clear and readable style, this book that the working class in modern woman’s work, yet there are perhaps the most important can be enjoyed by lawyers and Britain has little to offer a common threads. The women message is that the younger non-lawyers alike. progressive country. This book have shown courage, generations in the working class It starts with interviews from demonstrates the huge value of determination and unwillingness should not see their class as a nine women, all of whom come working class communities. to accept injustice. hindrance to change. If you want from the north of England. They Hyland’s aim is to remind people The author shows the it, listen to those around you and shed light on the political that members of the working class importance of education, and the work towards achieving that campaigns and movements that continue to fight against value of trade unions in change. these remarkable women have unwelcome changes through facilitating an educational Kate Newman

Socialist Lawyer February 2016 47 SL72_cover_pages.qxp_FINAL 14/02/2016 14:40 Page 2

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