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Lawyer SocialistMagazine of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers I Number 53 G October 2009 £2.50 THE RIGHT TO SELF- DETERMINATION Plus: SIXTY HUMAN RIGHTS BLAIR PEACH: IT’S YEARS OF UNDER ATTACK: TAKEN THREE LEGAL AID PHILIPPINES & DECADES Have Has it a future? COLOMBIA we got the truth? Haldane Society ThursdayNovember,London 19th Annual General seeMeeting page 3 Haldane Society PO Box 57055 London EC1P 1AF Website: www.haldane.org Contents Number 53 October 2009 ISSN 09 54 3635 News & comment ................................................................................ 4 From Derbyshire to Hanoi, Haldane members have been busy... Legal aid: 60 years on..............................................................12 Laura Janes asks for the last to leave to turn out the lights The Haldane Society was founded in 1930. It provides a forum for the discussion and analysis of law and the legal 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: Kader Asmal, Louise Christian, Tess Gill, Helena Kennedy QC, Imran Khan, Kate Markus, Gareth Peirce, Michael Seifert, David Turner- Samuels, Professor Lord Wedderburn QC Chair: Liz Davies ([email protected]) Vice-Chairs: Kat Craig (katherinec@ christiankhan.co.uk) and Anna Morris ([email protected]) Secretary: Marcus Joyce ([email protected]) Socialist Lawyer Editor: Kat Craig ([email protected]) Treasurer: Declan Owens ([email protected]) Human rights under attack ......................................14 Membership Secretary: Anna Morris on the Philippines and Kat Craig and Marcela Navarrete on Colombia Dave Renton ([email protected]) International Secretary: Bill Bowring The right to self-determination ............18-29 ([email protected]) ...for the Basques, the Irish, the Kurds and the Palestinians Executive Committee: John Beckley, Adrian Berry, Dale Brook, It took three decades...........................................................30 Justine Compton, Rheian Davies, ..but perhaps the truth about the killing of Blair Peach in 1979 is now to be revealed Michael Goold, Margaret Gordon, Richard Harvey, John Hobson, ...................................................................................................................... Shakawat Hossain, Marcus Joyce, Reviews 32 Catrin Lewis, Chris Loxton, Stephen Marsh, Books and a film that Haldane members think you should know about... Rob Murthwaite, Marcela Navarette, Carlos Orjuela, Tim Potter, Ripon Ray, Editor: Kat Craig Assisted by: Liz Davies, Brian Richardson, Hannah Rought-Brooks, Declan Owens, Tim Potter, Paul Smith, Kezia Tobin, Nick Toms, Camille Warren, Rebekah Wilson, Joe Williams and Farah Wise Charles Wright, Azam Zia Printed by: The Russell Press Many thanks to all our other contributors 2 I Socialist Lawyer G October 2009 from the chair An example to follow... hy be a lawyer? Many entering the legal profession are likely to answer: ‘because the money’s good’. Those people are unlikely to join the Haldane Society. Our members give very different answers: to make a difference to people’s lives, to challenge arbitrary state power, to use our legal skills as a Wtool that might help change the world. But ask any law student ‘who inspires you?’ the answer is likely to be ‘Mike Mansfield’. Fortunately for the Haldane Society, Mansfield combines his extraordinary legal practice with acting as our President. We review his book Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer on page 32. And, to inspire any law student who might yet be unconvinced, the man himself will be addressing our Annual General Meeting on 19th November (see box below right). Sadly, inspired young law students face a tough future. As Laura Janes explains, legal aid practitioners face countless struggles just to keep afloat. For busy practitioners, the celebrations of 60 years of legal aid feel rather double-edged. The 1945 Labour Government No, not these two... brought in legal aid as a cornerstone of the welfare state; part of the / reportdigital.co.uk Jess Hurd Picture: assault on Beveridge’s Five Great Evils: want, disease, ignorance, as they develop the Philippine law of amparo which can be used to squalor and idleness. These days, as the Legal Services Commission challenge arbitrary detention and forced disappearances, as well engages in consultation after consultation, payment rates are whittled as requiring the state to explain the whereabouts of a prisoner. away and fewer and fewer solicitors’ firms can survive when working In a special section, we consider the right to self-determination. As at predominantly legal aid rates. Those that do are increasingly pres- Bill Bowring explains, this right is enshrined in international law. surised to cut corners to make ends meet, giving rise to serious con- Nevertheless, governments routinely flout the rule of law. As the expe- cerns about the quality of services for the most vulnerable members riences of the Kurdish, Irish, Palestinian and Basque peoples show, of society. Each political party promises massive public spending the original grievance – lack of recognition of their identity and rights cuts after the general election. Public services will pay for the folly of – is only exacerbated by government crackdowns when national bankers, and much of the public regards lawyers with the same sort identities are asserted, including the criminalisation of legitimate polit- of contempt as bankers. To defend legal aid in those circumstances ical organisations and community groups. means getting the message across that legal aid is not about pay- Paul Lewis, the Guardian journalist who exposed the Metropolitan ing vast sums to fat cat lawyers, but ensuring that ordinary people police’s attempted cover up of their involvement in the death of Ian can protect their rights. Tomlinson, will open our exciting 2009-10 programme of lectures Most of this issue of Socialist Lawyer, however, is about our com- with Philippa Kaufman of Doughty Street Chambers on Thursday rades elsewhere in the world, whose struggles are without compari- 22nd October, speaking on ‘The Right to Protest: Police son. Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade Violence, Kettling and Cover-ups’. On Thursday 10th unionist. Those defending human rights are harassed, arbitrarily December, our ‘Defending Human Rights Defenders’ detained, tortured, killed or ‘disappeared’. The more high-profile lecture will take a fascinating look at the issues in both cases, such as that of Congressman Wilson Borja, Senator Piedad Colombia and the Philippines. Full details are on the Cordoba, or journalist and lawyer Dr Carlos Lozano, are only in part back page. Haldane members, and their friends, protected by their notoriety. They continue to function, at huge risk to are invited to come along to some fascinating themselves and their families, but they have to live in debilitatingly talks. I hope to see you there. restricted conditions in order to remain alive. But hundreds of political G Liz Davies, chair of the prisoners are in Colombia’s prisons – jailed for opposing the regime Haldane Society of Socialist or for defending its detractors, or just for being in the wrong place at Lawyers [email protected] the wrong time. The rule of law is routinely abused. Meanwhile, the UK Government continues to provide military aid to Colombia, whilst refusing to disclose details of what this aid entails and where it is going, citing ‘security’ concerns. What is clear is that elements within the Colombian army with the most appalling track record of human 14 Store Street rights abuses have seen the benefit of the UK Government’s support. at the College of Law We also cover recent arbitrary arrests, disappearances, and the London(nearest WC1E tube7DE extraordinary figure of 991 extra-judicial killings since 2001 in the Philippines. Human rights defenders are asking for global support Haldanefollowing AGM: Mike Thursday19th Mansfield’s lectureGoodge November (6.30pm) Street) Socialist Lawyer G Otober 2009 I 3 News&Comment MPs join legal aid campaign egal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG) and Young Legal Aid LLawyers (YLAL) have brought together a group of in- terested MPs and peers to form an All Party Parliamentary Group on Legal Aid. LAPG and YLAL believe changes to legal aid over the last few years, intro- duced by secondary legislation, were not sufficiently scrutinised. MPs, through meeting with con- Majorie Cohn, National Lawyers Guild, Vanessa Ramos, Association of American Jurists with Jeanne Mirer, newly elected stituents at their weekly surgeries, are in a unique position to identi- the so-called ‘War on Terror’; the fy failings in the system. It is Hanoi congress elects first spectre of climate change haunting hoped the Group will act as a fo- the lives of hundreds of millions of rum for discussion of the social people; impunity and other issues exclusion issues that surround le- IADL woman president arising from crimes against hu- gal aid, and raise the profile of le- manity and war crimes; and gal aid work in Parliament. ed and gold banners ‘Law and Lawyers in the Context worldwide assaults on the inde- The Group was launched at a festooned the humid of Globalisation: for Peace, De- pendence
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