SL69_cover_pages_print 16/02/2015 08:08 Page 1 SocialistLawyer Magazine of the HaldaneSociety of Socialist Lawyers ■ Number 69 ● February 2015 £3
Whatremains Photos from the last days of the war in Gaza in 2014, by Eduardo Soteras Jalil SL69_pp2-3_contents&editorial_print 16/02/2015 08:08 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 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, What remains is a photo essay about the consequences Tony Gifford QC, John Hendy QC, Helena Kennedy QC, Imran Khan, Catrin Lewis, 28 of the last attack on the Gaza Strip in 2014. These images Gareth Peirce, Michael Seifert, David Turner- were taken by freelance documentary photographer Samuels, Estella Schmidt, Phil Shiner, Eduardo Soteras Jalil during the last days of the war and Jeremy Smith, Frances Webber & David the first week of the ceasefire. Watkinson The current executive, elected at the AGM on 19th November 2014 is as follows: Chair: Russell Fraser ([email protected]) Vice-Chairs: Michael Goold & Hannah Rought-Brooks Secretary (job-share): News & comment Welfare cuts; fracking; European Natalie Csengeri & Sam Parham 4 Lawyers for Workers Network conference; ‘Day of the ([email protected]) Endangered Layer’; and regular columns from the Haldane Socialist Lawyer editor: Nick Bano ([email protected]) Feminist Lawyers and Young Legal Aid Lawyers Treasurer: Rebecca Harvey ‘Rubbish’ Russell Fraser on the Government’s proposed Membership Secretary: Stephen Knight ([email protected]) 12 plans for the Human Rights Act International Secretary: Bill Bowring Direct action casework Ellie Schling on a new ([email protected]) campaign aiming to secure housing rights while Wendy Executive Committee: 14 Robert Atkins, Martha Jean Baker, Jacob Pettifer argues that ‘Cathy’s got no home’ Bindman, Kat Craig, Liz Davies, Emily Elliott, Tinker, tailor, lawyer, spy? K D Ewing, Joan Mahoney Elizabeth Forrester, Margaret Gordon, and Andrew Moretta on surveillance of the Haldane Society Agnieszka Grabianka-Hindley, Owen 18 Greenhall, Richard Harvey, Carine Hejazi, during the Cold War Paul Heron, John Hobson, Sophie Khan, Mexico 43 Poetry about the 43 students murdered in Angus King, Siobhán Lloyd, Natasha Lloyd- Owen, Anna Morris, Carlos Orjuela, Declan 24 Mexico: That which returns: A poem for Alexander Mora Owens, Wendy Pettifer, Tim Potter, Ripon Turkey: Breaches of law and violating rights Carlos Ray, Brian Richardson, Catherine Rose, Judith Seifert, Shanthi Sivakumaran, Adiam 26 Orjuela on the resolute human rights lawyers on trial Weldensae Defending human rights defenders Paul Heron on 34 Iran and Haldane’s letter about Colombian Liliany Obando SocialistLawyer Feeding the vultures Jeremy Smith shows what US law in the service of the one per cent means in Argentina Editor (this issue): Tim Potter 36 Assistant editors: Russell Fraser & Nick Bano Access denied Reforms to legal aid, says Emma Scott, Special thanks to Emily Elliott, Michael Goold, 38 are a direct attack on women’s access to justice and rights Stephen Knight & Declan Owens Cover image: Eduardo Soteras Jalil Obituary Margaret Gordon talks to lawyers who look back Design: Smith+Bell (www.smithplusbell.com) 41 at the life of Mike Fisher Print: The Russell Press (www.russellpress.com) ‘Overseas Domestic Workers’: Britain’s slaves ISSN 09 54 3635 42 Virginia Mantouvalou talks to mistreated domestic workers Reviews Still the Enemy Within, Drones and Targeted 45 Killing: Legal Moral and Geopolitical Issues and In Protest: 150 poems for human rights
2 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp2-3_contents&editorial_print 16/02/2015 08:08 Page 3
from the chair
The close of 2014 saw a number of changes promote the interests of global capitalism Fatal dose for the Haldane Society. None more and to showcase London as the place for the significant than Liz Davies, Kat Craig and one per cent to do business and the legal to the Anna Morris all stepping down as chair and forum of choice to arbitrate disputes. The vice chairs. Liz had been in the post for eight ‘experts’ who will address various meetings welfare years and Kat and Anna had been the vice include a managing director of the chairs for the last six of those years. The investment banking arm of Goldman Sachs; state? contribution each of them has made to the the chairman of BAE Systems; and the Haldane Society is immeasurable. celebrated constitutional law expert, Boris Little has changed in the campaign to Johnson. Shami Chakrabarti, the director of defend legal aid. Two months into 2015 Liberty, is to be congratulated on deciding to and many of the proposals heralded by the withdraw from the event. Whereas the Transforming Legal Aid consultation are leaderships of the Bar Council, Law Society now law. Criminal solicitors continue their and the Criminal Bar Association are each to High Court battle against the imposition be deprecated for signing up in the first place of the disastrous dual contract scheme. and not now following her lead. At £1,750 And, as though confirmation were for a ticket few, if any, of those they represent required, the Public Accounts Committee will attend. concluded that the Government pushed Instead, those of our number who cannot through the 2012 cuts to civil legal aid allow this false reverence towards the rule of based on ‘no evidence in many areas, and law to go unchallenged will have again without making good use of the evidence gathered to protest at Old Palace Yard on the that it did have in other areas’. day the summit begins. In all likelihood the The Tories, in a near unprecedented piece protests against the GLS will be the last legal of political legerdemain, have used the aid demonstrations before the general election. financial crisis to impose austerity on the In recent days the Labour party has said that it nation. Presented as the only cure for the will reverse the dual contract model if it is debt, its chief purpose is to administer a fatal realised and the party promises to review the dose to the welfare state of which legal aid is next 8.75 per cent cut to criminal legal aid. a part. We are all to used to hearing This is hardly cause for encouragement but it is statements issued from the Ministry of a sign that the message of the past two years is Justice claiming that even after these cuts our filtering through. legal aid system will remain one of the ‘most When the proposals were announced in generous in the world’. Generous to whom April 2013, criminal lawyers in this country we are never told. But the use of the adjective had never organised an effective strike in is instructive: loaded, as it is, with the their history. Many doubted it could even be insinuation that something is being provided achieved. From the outset, the executive which is more than is necessary or perhaps committee of the Haldane Society called for deserved. That is the Government’s direct action as the only response to the assessment of those who rely on publicly Tories’ economic and ideological raid on the funded legal services. fourth pillar of the welfare state. Within a As Socialist Lawyer goes to press, the year there had been two successful days of Government will be hosting its Global Law action which galvanised criminal solicitors Summit (GLS). It is an event billed as and barristers as never before. More marking the 800th anniversary of the significantly it forced the Justice Secretary to Magna Carta and is ‘evidence that Britain act. There is still time to defeat the last of the continues to lead the way in promoting free Government’s damaging reforms. The work enterprise… and the Rule of Law.’ A cursory to repair the vandalism inflicted on our legal glance at the brochure for the event confirms aid service must begin at once. that the Magna Carta is but a fig leaf for the Russell Fraser Chair of the Haldane conference’s real purpose. It is an event to Society of Socialist Lawyers
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 3 SL69_pp4-11_news 16/02/2015 08:05 Page 4
News&Comment
Cuts across Rage as Ferguson cop is cleared welfare bite: time to get organised
he Manchester-based Access to Advice campaign together Twith Justice Alliance North organised a significant public meeting during the Labour Party conference in Manchester in September 2014 which saw an attendance of over 100 people. The Shadow Justice Minister Andy Slaughter MP spoke alongside Denise McDowell, Director of the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and Cris McCurley, a leading family solicitor at Ben Hoare Bell in the North East. Denise McDowell opened by stating that only that morning, 35 people had been queuing outside her workplace for advice at 7.30am, just one example of the reality of what is now happening as cuts across welfare provision translate. Furthermore, while in 2012- 2013 there were 870 not-for-profit Protests erupted across the US at the news that Darren Wilson, the white cop who shot 18 year old Michael Brown dead in Ferguson, St L providers with a public funding ‘Justice for Michael Brown’ protesters in London in November 2015 showed solidarity with Ferguson, beginning at the US Embassy and contract, the figures for 2013-2014 showed a contraction to just 95 funding had been successful and included the introduction of fees the Shadow Justice Minister had providers. women and children’s lives were at in employment tribunals where ruled out the full restoration of the Cris McCurley spoke risk. figures indicate that there has been cuts made, although he indicated powerfully of the crisis of funding Andy Slaughter MP made an 80 per cent fall in claims that more specific detail of an in domestic violence cases stating reference to a range of examples advanced by workers and incoming Labour Government’s that the suggestion by the that belied the assertion that employees. Family mediations had proposals would emerge as the Government that all victims of various changes were about fallen and the general situations general election approaches. domestic violence would obtain savings, but rather were indicative within the probation and prison The meeting also heard a range legal aid was a ‘complete lie’. In of the Government’s ideological services were extremely dire. of suggestions regarding next steps fact, less than 1 per cent of family assault upon the welfare state. Contributions from the floor of to be taken in campaigning. applications for exceptional case Other matters highlighted the meeting included criticism that Justice Alliance North and Access September October 16: The European Court of Human 25: A leading lawyer and human rights 3: The Conservatives released an 18: A protest called by Unite, Unison, Rights (ECtHR) dismissed the case activist, Samira Salih al-Nuaimi, was outline of their plans to scrap the the National Union of Teachers, the brought by the brother of Tarek Hassan, publicly executed by ISIS militants after Human Rights Act 1998 and introduce Communication Workers Union, the who was found dead after being being tried in a Sharia court for a ‘British Bill of Rights and Royal College of Nurses and Equity, to detained by British forces in Iraq, for apostasy. The Gulf Centre for Human Responsibilities’. The proposals aim to demand pay rises attracted up to lack of evidence. Mr Hassan was an Rights reported that she had worked on stop the European Court of Human 90,000 people in London. The protest Iraqi national allegedly captured, detainee rights and poverty before her Rights from holding the UK highlighted that five million people in the detained and ill-treated by British forces execution. It was reported that at least Government to account for breaches of UK are earning less than the living operating from Camp Bucca in Iraq. five other female activists had been human rights. wage. killed in the weeks before her death.
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Haldane Feminist Lawyers Deck stacked against victims
n December 2014, Alison Considering the number of issues for a realistic prospect of Saunders, the Director of surrounding this case and the conviction for perverting the IPublic Prosecutions, vigorously trivial gain achieved as a result of a course of justice.’ This evidence defended the decision to prosecute successful prosecution of De included text messages and CCTV Eleanor De Freitas. Freitas, the question is raised as to footage (taken in a shop of the two The case began when De why the CPS so adamantly parties around the same time as Freitas, a 23-year-old woman, believed that pursuing this case the allegation), which ‘directly reported an alleged rape to the was in the public’s interest, rather contradicted the account given to police in January 2013. After than stopping the prosecution. As the police’. This plays into the investigating the incident and Saunders said, the case involved damaging misconceptions interviewing her and the alleged careful consideration because De surrounding rape that already
Pictures: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Pictures: perpetrator, the police told her Freitas had mental health exist in society: that rape does not they could not proceed with the problems and because it was the occur in a relationship. If we case as there was not a realistic subject of a private prosecution continue to confuse how rape can chance of a successful conviction. without a full police investigation. occur in a relationship, then we The alleged perpetrator responded This decision seems even more are preventing a clear by pursuing a private prosecution arbitrary considering the understanding of consent. against De Freitas for perverting consistent refusal by the officers Consequently, we are also the course of justice (PCJ), a who investigated the original preventing successful rape prosecution which was later taken complaint to support prosecutors convictions. over by the Crown Prosecution in the case against De Freitas for Saunders further explains that, Service (CPS). The trial was due to PCJ. Additionally, the CPS ‘…where there is sufficient open on 7th April 2014, however, lawyers pushing the PCJ case evidence to show that a false claim on 4th April 2014 De Freitas never met or interviewed De may have been made, the potential killed herself. Freitas about her allegation. harm to those affected must be This tragic case brings to the In particular, the argument very carefully considered and an fore once more the culture of Saunders advanced regarding appropriate decision made.’ injustice for rape complainants evidence was concerning. She Unfortunately here, the harm that and the sexist bias that exists in states, ‘The evidence was strong was suffered by the man has been our criminal justice system. Many and having considered it [...] it is assessed as more important. The groups, including Victim Support, clear there was sufficient evidence man was not named and he did Justice for Women and Inquest, not face trial. He did not receive a have raised concerns about the criminal conviction. What he lost CPS decision to prosecute De was minimal compared to the Freitas. broader problems with yet Rape allegations are infamous another allegation of rape going on, St Louis, in August will not face trial. for rarely leading to a criminal untried and another rape ssy and ending at Scotland Yard. trial in respect of the alleged rapist, complainant pursued for allegedly let alone their conviction. Some lying. This denial, once more, of to Advice are convening a further argue that this is due to the justice for a rape complainant, and day conference in Manchester to intrinsic nature of the crime; that the bias in favour of the man, galvanise tactics in the months it is often an act which occurs in directly affected a vulnerable leading towards the election in private with only the young woman and led to her May 2015. complainant and defendant as death. Eleanor De Freitas has both The Haldane Society is witnesses. With this in mind, become yet another woman let sponsoring the conference in line having a system which down by the criminal justice with the practical and political supports rape complainants system and another victim of a support given over the past few coming forwards is crucial. patriarchal justice system. years to this important campaign This case unfortunately illustrates Emily Elliott & Natalie Csengeri and broad alliance. yet more reasons why a rape ● If you are interested in learning complainant would be about or discussing feminism and the dissuaded from speaking out. law, contact the Haldane Feminist Not only was the case dropped Lawyers at feminism@ 31: President of the Family Division, Sir because of a lack of evidence haldane.org, add us on Facebook, James Munby, delivers a judgment (again, an issue with the nature of or get involved in the IADL and raising serious concerns about the the crime), but the CPS have Haldane Society sponsored impact of legal aid cuts on the demonstrated their willingness to International Women’s Conference vulnerable. ‘…it is unthinkable that prosecute for PCJ in respect of in London on the 28th and 29th parents should have to face the local authority’s application without proper rape allegations. December 2015 entitled: ‘Women representation. To require them to do so The CPS has a duty to take all Fighting on All Fronts! Organising would be unconscionable; it would be circumstances into account before Communities and Alternative unjust... a denial of justice. The child is progressing with a prosecution. Movement Building’. also entitled to a fair trial.’ Socialist Lawyer February 2015 5 SL69_pp4-11_news 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 6
News&Comment
errors in their heavy-handed Fracking – the protests policing of anti-fracking protests in Balcombe. This led to a number of successful defences being run at and the court cases trial on behalf of protesters, many of whom had become involved in political action for the first time in their lives. ‘How did the police get hen it comes to policing occurred at the UK’s only fracking it so wrong?’ he asked, despite the the anti-fracking site and reports that the tap water police involved having claimed Wprotests the police seem near some sites can be set on fire that they had had advice from a to have taken their lead from the owing to high methane levels. The ‘leading human rights law fracking process itself. They apply Government, she explained, does adviser’. immense pressure to the not have a climate change agenda Tom argued that the protesters communities and activists who and activists must stand up to were determined to use effective stand up to fracking, trying to fossil fuel use and ‘extreme actions such as lock-ons and sit- blast them apart. energy’. down protests rather than the On 3rd December 2014, Melanie Strickland argued that more anodyne action of placard- Melanie Strickland, an activist this is an issue of democracy and an holding that the police had with Reclaim the Power and also a issue for socialists. The ‘arch- expected. The police could not lawyer, and Tom Wainwright, a capitalists’ are fully behind fracking compute that. They ended up barrister who represented many of and communities and governance taking outrageous and the anti-fracking activists, spoke are being undermined in order to disproportionate steps where no to the Haldane Society about the make fracking profitable. such over zealous steps were legal and political issues Community resistance is the only necessary. Importantly, the police surrounding fracking. They made reason that fracking is not here saw human rights protections as it clear that fracking is not just a already and – particularly in light of merely a technical requirement of threat to the environment, but also the police’s harsh response to anti- policing rather than a valuable a test of whether communities fracking groups – she called for goal. have the right to say ‘no’ to solidarity and support. Both Tom Wainwright and ecological catastrophe. The Tom described the £4 million Melanie Strickland agreed that the Government and the pro-fracking policing operation at Balcombe as solidarity provided by the many business lobby are desperate to a test run for the police. He gave supporters and members of the overcome community opposition, examples of arbitrary arrests, public who packed out the public which perhaps explains the impossible regulations and gallery at the trials of those being bizarre and heavy-handed tactics spurious controls. He explained prosecuted for their protests at that the police have used at anti- that the conviction rates of anti- Balcombe had had a tangible fracking protests. fracking protestors were very low impact upon the decisions that Melanie Strickland explained in proportion to the number of were ultimately taken by the the fracking process and gave an arrests, and that the entire process court. overview of the major protests so seemed to be aimed at limiting the Just a few days after this far, including the two large camps right to protest effectively. lecture, the anti-fracking at Balcombe in Sussex and Barton Tom Wainwright explained campaigners lost a High Court Moss near Manchester. She made that the lawyer’s role is to translate case to stop further fracking at it very clear that the Government’s the protesters’ good sense of right Balcombe: surely further evidence proposed ‘solution’ of heavy and wrong into arguments that of the institutional zeal for this regulation cannot work as expose police tactics and harmful project and of the fracking is inherently harmful. She ridiculous prosecutions in court. importance of activism and gave the examples of the two Tom Wainwright set out how community resistance. minor earthquakes that have the police had made a number of Nick Bano Fracking protests like this one in Manchester in 201 November December 2: The family of a 17-year-old girl, who 5: Thousands of protesters gathered 21: The Supreme Court will hear the 5: The Investigatory Powers Tribunal committed suicide following police for the Million Mask March in central case brought by The Guardian to found that the UK Government’s mass detention, sought judicial review of the London. The anti-capitalist protest was publish secret letters written by Prince surveillance is lawful and does not Home Office’s policy for detaining young part of a global annual protest Charles. The Government has resisted breach human rights. A challenge to people. The legal challenge is being organised by Anonymous. a Freedom of Information request since GCHQ’s surveillance was brought by brought by Just for Kids and is 2005 to disclose copies of the letters Amnesty International, Privacy supported by the families of other young and in 2013, Dominic Grieve QC MP, International, Liberty and other people who committed suicide soon then Attorney-General, blocked the organisations who questioned the after being detained in police custody. publication of the letters after the collection and use of mass data without Freedom of Information tribunal ruled a warrant. that the letters should be disclosed. 6 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp4-11_news 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 7
News&Comment
Assault on welfare goes on
ust as catastrophic events are cynically used to bury ‘bad Jnews’ so too are they used to reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Pictures: advance political agendas. Neo-liberalism has not only Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaigners protested outside the Independent survived the financial crisis it caused Police Complaints Commission in November 2014 at the delays to the six years ago, but has used the investigation into violent policing during the miners strike in June 1984. ensuing economic turmoil as an excuse to dismantle any obstacles to the European Central Bank) in Counterattacks have been progress and profitability. The result return for propping up struggling launched and successful challenges has been an attack on social State economies. Although these to country specific EU democracy and welfare systems in take the form of ‘recommendations’, recommendations have already the UK and across Europe. which have no legal standing, they been made on the grounds of Collective bargaining, with its effectively become conditions for the inconsistency with national laws time consuming participation of receipt of financial assistance. and the ratification of ILO workers in decision making and its In Romania and Greece, for conventions in Portugal. expensive protection of example, new requirements for Efforts are now being made to employment rights and standards, is majority consent in sector wide intervene in legal challenges at an a key focus of the attack. agreements have made trade union early stage in order to phrase How to address this mainstream participation harder to achieve and actions in terms of incompatibility political assault was among the have been criticised by the with the fundamental social rights subjects discussed at the European International Labour Organisation enshrined in EU law. Lawyers for Workers Network (ILO) as being in violation of its In other cases, notably Pringle v (ELW) organised conference, ‘Six conventions. Hopefully the newly Ireland, however, defenders of Years of Austerity and the Impact elected Syriza-led administration austerity have successfully trumped on Collective Bargaining’, held in will seek to reverse these social rights by invoking Article 16 – Paris on 15th November 2014. requirements in Greece. the right to freedom of contract. It is Isabelle Schoemann, senior Other rescue packages in Spain unclear how Europe’s courts will researcher at the European Trade and Portugal have required the balance social rights with Institute, explained that the implementation of ‘internal commercial rights going forwards. dominant European political efficiencies’ within workplaces –a Despite their ostensible discourse in how to tackle the euphemism for wage cuts and the independence, courts will be under economic crisis ‘assumes that increased use of cheaper agency and pressure to capitulate to the lowering labour costs is key for temporary workers. political imperative. Lawyers improving competitiveness, growth Trade union coordination and defending collective bargaining and job opportunities’. nationwide strikes have been placed rights must win the legal argument Country specific labour law under threat by recommendations and face the task of changing the reforms have been pushed through that collective bargaining should be dominant political discourse that by the ‘Troika’ (comprising the de-centralised to the level of the labour rights are not to be treated as European Commission, enterprise, rather than wider economic adjustment factors. ter in 2014 are getting their message across. International Monetary Fund and national or sectoral level. Agnieszka Grabianka-Hindley
10: The President of Brazil, Dilma 10: The release of a damning report by 11: Private conversations between 11: Solidarity protests with rallies in the Rouseff, wept as she unveiled the report the Senate intelligence committee in the MPs and prisoners are supposed to be USA sparked by the death of Eric on human rights abuses committed by USA reveals the use of a torture exempt from prison security regimes, Garner were held at Westfield shopping Brazil’s military dictatorship during their programme that was employed by the which monitor prison calls. The Justice centre in west London. 76 protesters rule of Brazil from 1964 –1985, when CIA. The United Nations and human Secretary Chris Grayling MP admitted were arrested at a mass ‘die-in’ protest 191 people were killed and 243 rights organisations call for the Obama that these calls may have been in solidarity with rallies in the USA ‘disappeared’. Rouseff herself was administration to prosecute US officials recorded and monitored by prisons and against police violence against tortured by the military and the US and responsible for approving the use of at least 32 MPs are thought to have members of black communities. UK were found to have trained Brazilian torture. been affected. interrogators in torture techniques.
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 7 SL69_pp4-11_news 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 8
News&Comment
All across Europe – the ‘day of the endangered lawyer’
n Friday 23rd January Kristine Leilani Salle, First 2015, Haldane members Secretary (Political). This Otogether with Philippines included Rafael Joseph solidarity representatives Maramag from the Campaign demonstrated outside the for Human Rights for the Philippine Embassy in London. Philippines CHRP. We carried posters with the The delegation was very photographs of five Philippine satisfied with Ms Salle’s open lawyers who were recently killed: and constructive response to the Rudolfo Felicio, John Mark petition which we handed to her Espera, Jubian Achas, Sulpicio together with the full report on Landicho and Lazaro Gayo. the plight of lawyers in the The reported total number of Philippines which we provided. lawyers that have been killed in She promised that our the Philippines since 2001 is 41, demonstration and petition nine of whom were directly would be brought to the involved in handling human attention of all the relevant rights cases or issues. On top of Philippine authorities. One this, 57 lawyers have been alleged perpetrator is already threatened, harassed, being brought to trial. intimidated, subjected to This was the fifth Day of the surveillance, labelled and Endangered Lawyer. The Day of attacked in other forms, a the Endangered Lawyer is an sizeable 43 of whom were initiative which was started by directly involved in human rights the organisation European cases or advocacy. In addition, Democratic Lawyers in 2010 on 18 judges have been murdered behalf of endangered lawyers in since 2001. Of the known Iran. perpetrators recorded, 65 per The date of 24th January was cent were identified to be chosen in remembrance of the members of the military while 20 assassination of four trade union per cent were from the police lawyers and one employee in service. More than half of all Atocha Street in Madrid in attacks have no known 1977, during the time of perpetrator to date. transition after the death in 1975 A delegation of three of the Spanish dictator General members of the protest was Francisco Franco. The (Top) The protest outside the Philippines embassy in January 2015; (centre) Bill, Susan and Rafael outside; and handing over the petition to Kristina Sella. invited into the Embassy by perpetrators who were arrested December 12: On the same day that the High 16: Three private security guards were 17: The Court of Appeal held that the Court heard a judicial review of the acquitted of charges of manslaughter of Lord Chancellor’s guidance on Government’s changes to legal aid for Angolan deportee Jimmy Mubenga on exceptional funding in civil legal aid is domestic violence victims, a report a deportation flight. It emerged after the incompatible with Article 6 of the exposed that 40 per cent of victims do 210 trial that ‘grossly offensive and European Convention on Human not have the required evidence to The number of deaths in UK undoubtedly racist’ texts that two Rights. The Court of Appeal also held access legal aid. Nearly 60 per cent defendants had sent before Jimmy that the guidance on legal aid in took no legal action as a direct result of prisons in 2014. Eighty-four Mubenga was killed were not disclosed immigration cases is incompatible with not being eligible for legal aid. were self-inflicted, including to the jury. The trial judge found that the Article 8 ECHR in cases where there is a 14 young people aged 18-24. texts had no real relevance to the trial question of the applicant’s right to privacy and family life. 8 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp4-11_news 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 9
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 Defending Magna Carta
were close to far right parties he aftermath of the terrorist editorial in the North Briton individuals the right to complain and organisations. attacks on the French which was said to libel the King directly to the European Court of In previous years, the Tsatirical magazine Charlie and the Lords at Commons. The Human Rights (ECtHR), and Haldane Society has led protests Hebdo has seen a number of search was carried out under the latterly, calls to enshrine the in London on behalf of leading political figures calling for auspices of a ‘general warrant’ ECHR in domestic legislation. endangered lawyers in Turkey, the security services to be given issued by the Secretary of State, Speaking out against the right to the Basque country, and greater powers to monitor our Lord Halifax. These general individual petition in Parliament Colombia. data, as a means to detect and warrants did not need to specify in 1958 the Lord Chancellor, On 23rd January 2015, prevent similar attacks in the the name of any particular person, David Maxwell Fyfe – chairman similar protests took place in future. For the Conservatives, the but allowed the bearer to break of the legal committee involved in Manila in the Philippines and in Prime Minister David Cameron into the house of any individual drafting the ECHR – declared 21 cities in 10 European and the Mayor of London Boris deemed worthy of suspicion and such protection unnecessary since countries in addition to England Johnson have led the charge, with seize his goods. Upon hearing the ‘our law does guarantee for our including: Vienna, Brussels, Cameron pledging to legislate to case the Lord Chief Justice citizens the rights and freedoms Paris, Montpellier, Berlin, Essen, provide for increased State declared the practice of issuing that are contained in the Athens, Rome, Amsterdam, The scrutiny of our telephone and these warrants to ‘effect the Convention’. Hague, Barcelona, Bilbao, internet usage, if elected in May person and property of every man But if this blithe assertion was Madrid, Bern, Adana, Alanya, 2015. The proposals have caused in this kingdom’ and to be ‘totally ever true, it certainly ceased to be Ankara, Antalya, Bursa, zmir dismay among civil liberties subversive of the liberty of the the case as time passed and the and Istanbul. İ campaigners who feel that the subject’. The jury, having ECHR evolved. In 2002, the The Day of the Endangered measures would be overly deliberated until close to ECtHR, considering the late Lawyer is organised by three intrusive, and that there is a midnight, found for Wilkes and Diane Pretty’s ‘right to die’ in the European lawyers’ associations: concerning lack of transparency awarded him damages of £1,000. case of Pretty v UK (2002) 35 European Democratic Lawyers; around the use of such powers. It is this history which, no EHRR 1, remarked that Article 8 European Lawyers for The extent to which the State doubt, led to the notion that an had developed to encompass the Democracy and Human Rights should be able to interfere in our Englishman’s home is his castle notions of self-determination and (ELDH); and the European Bar private affairs, and in our home becoming, to quote the recently personal autonomy. In Human Rights Institute life, is a familiar debate in Britain. retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Manchester City Council v (IDHAE). The right to respect for one’s home Alan Ward, ‘firmly embedded in Pinnock [2011] UKSC 45, [2011] The Haldane Society was a is perhaps one of the oldest rights English folklore’. And it was the 2 AC 104, the Supreme Court held founder member, on 1st May protected by the law in this legal protection encapsulated in that domestic law, in order to keep 1993 in Paris, of ELDH. ELDH country. Famously, clause 29 of this idiom which came to form the pace with the Strasbourg case law, members include lawyers’ Magna Carta 1297 provides that basis of Article 8 of the European must finally recognise that an organisations and individual ‘no freeman may be taken or Convention on Human Rights individual faced with eviction lawyers from the following imprisoned or disseised of his (ECHR), which secures for from his or her home should at the countries: Albania, Austria, Freehold’ except by due process of everyone within the jurisdiction of last instance be able to rely on Belgium, Bulgaria, England, law: a clause which mirrored a the treaty the right to respect for Article 8 by way of a defence. Finland, France, Germany, concession in the original charter his or her private and family life, Shortly before Christmas 2014, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Romania, signed by King John at home and correspondence. the Court of Appeal in Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Runnymede in 1215, intended to The ECHR, which was signed Gudanaviciene and others v Russia and Turkey. protect the lands of the rebel by the United Kingdom in Rome Director of Legal Aid Casework The next ELDH Executive Barons from arbitrary on 4th November 1950 and which [2014] EWCA Civ 1622 affirmed Committee meeting is being confiscation by the King. This came into force on 3rd September that Article 8 may, in certain planned to take place in Madrid in protection was reproduced in a 1953 – during Churchill’s final limited circumstances, oblige the May 2015 following a conference, stream of mediaeval statutes until premiership – was not intended to State to provide legal aid to a >>> also in Madrid, on ‘Defending the the time of Henry VI. provide any great leap forward in Citizen’. Please contact me at At common law this right to the legal protection available in [email protected] if you are respect for one’s home found many of the State parties to the Cameron has interested in attending. expression in seminal cases such as Convention. The travaux pledged to Bill Bowring Wilkes and Wood (1763) Lofft 1, preparatoires to Article 8 of the legislate to 98 ER 489. John Wilkes MP was ECHR (the preparatory provide for the editor of the supposedly documents recording amendments increased State seditious North Briton newspaper. made during the drafting process), scrutiny of our telephone and 17: The al-Sweady inquiry published On 30th April 1762, Mr Wood, include the observation that, at together with ‘several of the King’s time of drafting, ‘privacy [and] the internet usage, its report on the treatment of Iraqi if elected in detainees by British forces in Iraq. The messengers, and a constable’ sanctity of the home… were May. inquiry found that soldiers had entered Wilkes’ house and protected under the constitutions mistreated detainees in breach of proceeded to break open his locks or laws of most, if not all, international law and Ministry of and search his papers. The countries’ already. For many Defence rules. However, allegations that detainees were murdered and purpose of the search related to years this was used by the their bodies mutilated were rejected. Wilkes’ authorship of a Government of the day as a
Picture: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: particularly inflammatory means to resist first, allowing
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 9 SL69_pp4-11_news 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 10
News&Comment
Young LegalAid Lawyers
>>> migrant who is seeking to removed the main source of alms challenge his or her removal from for the poor, leading to the the UK as unlawful, where that is enactment of the Vagabonds Act necessary to ensure a fair hearing. 1531. It is wholly improbable that Does this mean that the ambit the draftsmen behind the ECHR of Article 8 has extended beyond would ever have conceived that that which was intended when it Article 8 might combine these was originally drafted? In my view, social and legal developments to reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: yes. The facts of the case of IS, one provide a vulnerable migrant with of the migrants at the centre of the a right to legal aid to help him Gudanaviciene litigation, provide access community care services. a useful illustration. IS, who had a Does this mean that the ECHR profound cognitive impairment, has gone too far? In my view, no. sought legal aid to try and The ECHR has often been regularise his immigration status described as a ‘living instrument’. so that he could apply for And if it is to remain relevant and community care services. Dealing useful as the norms of society shift, with the three legal issues this as technology develops and State raises in turn, immigration control practices change, then it is was a relatively novel concept in essential that it should be so. The the UK in 1950 at the time the law has always had to adapt in ECHR was signed. The Aliens Act this way. Witness the Lord Chief 1905 placed some restrictions on Justice’s response to the emerging the rights of certain migrants to 18th century Government practice live and work in the UK, but the of issuing general warrants to deal Nationality Act 1948 allowed for with individuals such as John British subjects and Wilkes MP, deemed to be thorns in commonwealth citizens to come the side of the establishment. On 31st January 2015, a ‘March for Homes’ converged on City Hall with thousands of dem and go freely. Similarly, legal aid This, I think, is the argument to find homes in London. One part started in south London, while the other came from the was in its infancy. The Legal Aid that we need to make as we and Advice Act 1949 had only approach the next election, facing recently been enacted, replacing increasing numbers of politicians the piecemeal assistance which had bent on the repeal of the Human Murder of Nestlé worker Romero been available to impoverished Rights Act 1998. Let us not defendants under statutes such as pretend that instruments like the n 18th December 2014, it by submitting a complaint the Poor Prisoners’ Defence Acts of ECHR have not changed well was announced that the against Switzerland on behalf of 1903 and 1930. Meanwhile, beyond that which was envisioned OSwiss judiciary had Romero’s widow to the community care services were a 60 years ago. But equally let us not refused to investigate the role European Court of Human radical innovation of the post-war accept that this is something new played by Nestlé in the murder of Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. welfare State contained in the or undesirable or in any way out Colombian trade unionist and The ECCHR is basing its case on National Assistance Act 1948, of keeping with traditions of Nestlé worker Luciano Romero the right to life (Article 2) and section 1 of which abolished the which we should be justifiably (see the the article on this case the right to an effective remedy cold-hearted poor laws that had proud. featured in Socialist Lawyer 68). (Article 13) guaranteed by the existed in various forms since Connor Johnston is a barrister and The European Centre for European Convention on Tudor times, when Henry VIII’s the Co-Chair Person of Young Legal Constitutional and Human Human Rights. The ECtHR dissolution of the monasteries Aid Lawyers Rights (ECCHR) has responded must now determine whether January 13: Justice Secretary Chris Grayling 13: MI5, MI6 and GCHQ disclosed 14: 300 survivors of child abuse and 25: Voters in Greece deliver a MP tables three significant concessions secret policies that advise staff to target campaigners gathered at the House of resounding rejection of austerity in their to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill to and use legally privileged material. The Commons to object to the lack of general election. Radical left party Syriza avoid an embarrassing third defeat in admission was made before the progress in the public inquiry. The storms to victory while the mainstream the Lords. Two of the concessions will Investigatory Powers Tribunal in a case inquiry was set up to investigate parties are left humiliated. The Tory New allow judges to retain some discretion brought by the al Saadi and Belhadj whether public bodies had failed in their Democracy party, which led the last to allow judicial review challenges and families regarding the kidnappings of duty to protect children in care from government, won just 76 seats in the to permit judicial committees to decide family members. It is alleged that they abuse. The inquiry has suffered serious 300-seat parliament. Labour-type at what level individual funders of the were subjected to rendition and torture delays after two chairs; Dame Elizabeth Pasok, which pushed through cuts in judicial review must be identified. in a joint CIA-MI6 operation. Butler Sloss and Fiona Woolf had to coalition with New Democracy, was stand down. reduced to just 13 seats.
10 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp4-11_news 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 11
News&Comment
New roll-call of soon to be eminent left-wing lawyers
he Haldane Society’s 2014 spoke about the rich history of the annual general meeting was Haldane Society and outlined Theld on 19th November some of its achievements and 2014 at London Metropolitan aims. Michael Seifert named University, which is the Haldane people who had been active in the Society’s new venue for its human Haldane Society in the past, which rights lecture series. As with was a roll-call of eminent left-wing previous lectures it was very well lawyers. attended by both students and Michael Seifert also described practising lawyers. the Haldane Society’s habit of It was a real shame that John rejuvenating itself every few years McDonnell MP could not give his as young, fiery lawyers are keen to talk as scheduled. He had been replace older generations. It was due to give an MP’s perspective on interesting to see the meeting play the relationship between out in that vein, as more junior Parliament and the courts, but the practitioners took on important Parliamentary debate on roles on the executive committee. European Arrest Warrants and EU Despite John McDonnell’s justice measures meant that he had absence it was a good and to cancel at short notice. encouraging meeting. This coming Fortunately, a number of the year for the Haldane Society, with Haldane Society’s more senior its newly elected executive members were at the meeting. committee, is sure to be one filled Partly for the benefit of students with energy, vigour and s of demonstrators, including council tenants, trade unionists and young people struggling and the newer members, Michael comradeship. rom the east end, led by the Focus E15 campaign, threatened with eviction two years ago. Seifert, Bill Bowring and others Nick Bano ero in Colombia: Complaint against Switzerland is submitted
the Swiss judiciary has powerless against the violence in lawyers from Colombia and corporations are almost never adequately examined Nestlé’s Colombia,’ says ECCHR Switzerland. held accountable in their home liability for Romero’s murder. General Secretary Wolfgang The Swiss judiciary dismissed States for human rights violations According to figures from Kaleck. ‘Trade unionists are all claims against Nestlé in the committed abroad,’ says Kaleck. Colombian sources, almost being systematically murdered Romero case. In July 2014, the ‘Europe badly needs a catalogue 3,000 trade unionists have been in Colombia. The killing of Swiss Federal Supreme Court held of human rights due diligence murdered in Colombia over the Luciano Romero is not an that the crimes in question were obligations for corporations.’ past 30 years. 13 of these isolated incident,’ says Javier now statute-barred. ‘The lapse of For more information on the worked for Nestlé. ‘Neither Correa, President of the the statute of limitations, a lack of Luciano Romero case please visit Nestlé management nor the Colombian trade union jurisdiction, investigatory http://www.ecchr.de/nestle- Swiss authorities could claim to Sinaltrainal, which is assisting difficulties – it’s always the same 518.html. have been unaware of or with the complaint along with arguments. European Annelen Micus February 2: Capita, the private outsourcing 6: The Investigatory Powers Tribunal 13: Israel’s Supreme Court rejects the company, has been ordered to pay (IPT) declares that regulations covering appeal by the family of Rachel Corrie – £16,000 by the most senior judge in the access by Britain’s GCHQ to emails the US activist who was crushed to family courts, Sir James Munby, for its and phone records intercepted by the death by a military bulldozer in Gaza in £13 ‘lamentable’ failure to provide US National Security Agency (NSA) 2003 – which had sought to hold Israel interpreters seven times in the course of breached human rights law. The ruling liable for her death. The family said it: a single adoption case. Capita took suggests that aspects of the operations ‘amounts to judicial sanction of billion over the £300m contract in 2012 after it were illegal for at least seven years – immunity for Israeli military forces when bought another firm, ALS. Professional between 2007, when the Prism they commit injustices and human Hidden by UK tax dodgers in interpreters are still boycotting the intercept programme was introduced, rights violations.’ HSBC’s Swiss bank accounts. service because of low fees. and 2014.
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 11 SL69_pp12-13_HRA_print 16/02/201508:09Page12
12 Picture: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk Socialist Lawyer February 20 15 ‘Rubbish’ SL69_pp12-13_HRA_print 16/02/2015 08:09 Page 13
That’s the verdict of an eminent public law barrister and QC on the Government’s proposed plan to radically alter the UK’s relationship with the European Court of Human Rights. Is she right? Russell Fraser thinks so...
The onslaught continues. Since April 2013 The document sets out its arguments in a criminals, and murderers, to the detriment of the the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, has section called ‘the case for change’. It begins by law-abiding majority and that we (or rather been laying waste to our justice system. His telling us that there have been developments Labour) have already surrendered a great slice of package of legal aid cuts continued the work which have ‘undermined public confidence’ in sovereignty to the European super State. The of his predecessor, Kenneth Clarke MP; the way human rights operate in the UK. No Tories calculate that by a combination of whose attacks have seen thousands denied evidence is offered for this assertion; it is deliberate deception and macho posturing in the legal assistance in most areas of social welfare assumed that this is axiomatic and direction of Strasbourg that they will quell the law. Yet arguably, Mr Grayling’s justice cuts incontrovertible. It is then suggested that there Ukip insurgency ahead of the election. If accuracy are worse – much worse – and are is ‘mounting concern at Strasbourg’s attempts is indeed a duty and not a virtue then each of us deliberately devised to deny access to the to overrule decisions of our democratically has an obligation to expose these plans for what courts to those the Tories consider unworthy elected Parliament.’ Concern from whom we they are and to rail against them wherever their of protection: foreigners, prisoners, the are not told. Which decisions of Parliament are claims surface. indigent, and those who challenge threatened by Strasbourg is not revealed. The The European Convention on Human Rights is Government policy in the courts. reason for this absence of evidence might be far from ideal. It does not yet enshrine Disgracefully, though whimpered because it is simply not true. The ECtHR has socioeconomic and environmental rights as new complaints occasionally issue from the no power to overrule decisions of Parliament; constitutions throughout the world have done in opposition benches, Labour has made no indeed section 3(2) of the Human Rights Act recent decades. Yet the HRA has done much for clear commitment to undo the damage so 1998 (HRA) explicitly preserves parliamentary society with which socialists should find common obviously being wrought. Surprisingly, in sovereignty. The document goes on to argue cause. Before its introduction people seeking fact, it is from the benches of the High Court that in a decision in 2013, the ECtHR decreed redress were forced to petition Strasbourg directly that the most damning appraisals of Mr that murderers cannot be sentenced to life with all the attendant costs, delay, and difficulty Grayling’s cavalier treatment of justice and imprisonment. However, the ECtHR did no that entailed. Now our courts must consider the rule of law have descended. At times, such thing; it simply ruled that prisoners must human rights in all that they do. Perhaps its chief however, it looks as though Mr Grayling is be entitled to a review of their detention. function is that it protects the vulnerable and simply emboldened by criticism of his lack of Finally it is claimed that ‘Labour’s Human provides an effective check on the over mighty understanding of his portfolio and the Rights Act’ (as it is fatuously referred to State. Its provisions mean that our Governments increasing tally of legal judgments ruling throughout) exceeds the UK’s obligations cannot lawfully sanction State agents to torture. against him: like a drunk who revels in the under the European Convention on Human And where that prohibition is infringed it can be cries of the crowd begging him not to stray Rights. The HRA, say the Tories, makes the investigated and accountability achieved. It means too close to the edge. So, revelatory it is not, ECtHR’s jurisprudence ‘binding’ on domestic that the Government bodies cannot infiltrate to discover that Mr Grayling is one of the courts: in other words its decisions must be citizens’ communications without good cause. It architects of the Tories’ proposed plan to followed. This too is utterly wrong: the HRA means that unscrupulous landlords cannot simply radically alter our relationship with the has no such effect. evict tenants on a whim. It means that there are European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Such consistent and thorough limits on the time in which the authorities can The legal blogger Carl Gardner was misrepresentation of the legal position is no retain our DNA and other personal information. It the first to sniff something rodent-like. mistake. The proposals are pure propaganda protects religious freedom, political organising and The document Protecting Human Rights rather than any genuine attempt to analyse the trade union membership, and freedom to criticise in the UK (sounds innocent enough) problems – and there are some – with the in writing the powerful and the wealthy. All of this features the word ‘judgement’. Lawyers ECtHR. Much of what is proposed will do little should be embraced closely and dearly. The best use ‘judgment’ when describing a decision to change the reality of how the European way to extend these gains will be by recognising the or legal opinion delivered by a judge and Convention on Human Rights affects us – as achievements the HRA has heralded and ‘judgement’ when denoting, say, the much is conceded in the closing paragraphs. objectively critiquing its shortcomings. The Tories ability to reach a reasonable conclusion. Only a withdrawal from the Convention itself have no interest in either. On that evidence no lawyer was involved would terminate the UK’s obligations and the in the document’s composition. And Prime Minister David Cameron has only hinted Russell Fraser is a criminal barrister and chair of the perhaps that is made explicit by its that this could ever be a possibility. Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers. This is an contents; a plan that the eminent public It is no coincidence that these proposals come edited version of an article which first appeared in law barrister Dinah Rose QC had no at a time when the Tories’ electoral share and in Labour Briefing. qualms in describing as ‘just so rubbish’. turn their chance of remaining in power are threatened by the rise of Ukip. The language of the proposals is thoroughly reactionary with its appeals to ‘real circumstance’, ‘common sense’, and putting ‘Britain first’. The Tories promise a draft ‘British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities’ as though the HRA is some perfidious foreign import of doubtful origins. The aim of the plans is clear: to fuel the belief that the ECtHR protects unpopular minorities such as prisoners, foreign
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 13 SL69_pp14-17_housing_print 16/02/2015 08:09 Page 14
The receptionist looks up as a large group of people file into the housing office all at once with pushchairs and leaflets. They move up to the desk and one of them says they need to see the manager – they have an urgent Ellie Schling on a new complaint. A security campaign aiming to mix legal advice, direct action guard asks them to sit and solidarity in order to in the corner, out of the secure housing rights. way. ‘But that’s the point’, one woman says, ‘this is a protest. We’re supposed to be in the way’.
14 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp14-17_housing_print 16/02/2015 08:09 Page 15
Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth demand a member be housed.
The London Coalition Against Poverty shows how direct action tactics can to Southwark town hall to demand Ruth be (LCAP) began using ‘direct action casework’ successfully complement legal representation: given temporary housing without delay. The to challenge gate-keeping at Hackney’s Ruth had been declared ‘intentionally day after a lively demonstration at the Mipim homeless persons’ unit in 2007. ‘Direct action homeless’ by the London Borough of conference, a group of 20 filed into the town casework’ means using a variety of tactics to Southwark after being evicted from her hall asking to speak with the head of housing support someone to demand access to the temporary accommodation after allegedly and to have our issue resolved. The public services they need, including legal accruing some rent arrears. Like other unstoppable Focus E15 mums also burst into advice, protest and campaigning. In practice it homeless families, Ruth and her children had the town hall to join us. After an hour or so, the is often a group of people accompanying been housed in poor quality, but expensive, head of homelessness had been located and someone to the relevant office and refusing to temporary accommodation on the Aylesbury was there to speak to the group about Ruth’s leave until their problem is resolved. estate. They had been stuck in temporary case. We insisted that he address the whole LCAP is made up of five groups based in accommodation for seven years, and now had group as we did not want to be split up and different London areas. These groups meet up nowhere to go. After being evicted, they were made less powerful. Everyone knew Ruth’s regularly in community centres and cafes to staying with a neighbour who had agreed to situation and we wanted a simple outcome that discuss how to support their members with put them up for the time being. could be discussed in the group. After a housing and benefits issues. At these meetings HASL went with Ruth to Brixton Advice stalemate – with a decent attempt by some to people bring up their issues and discuss them Centre to get legal representation to challenge storm the tiny meeting room that the head of with input from the entire group. By the end Southwark’s decision. A solicitor took on her homelessness had retreated into – we arranged of the meeting they might have found out case and put in the appeal. The solicitor for four of us, including Ruth, to meet with where to go for legal advice, have heard how requested that during the appeal the London two of them. We emerged from the tiny someone else in the group resolved a similar Borough of Southwark use their discretion to meeting room after 15 minutes with a problem, planned to visit the housing office house the family. However, after two weeks’ guarantee that Ruth would be housed that day. en masse, contact the press or occupy the Southwark Housing decided they would not Our mass visit complemented the work town hall. The example from Housing Action house Ruth and her kids. done by Ruth’s lawyer, securing a quick and Southwark and Lambeth (HASL) below Acting quickly, HASL organised a mass visit definitive response to the lawyer’s request >>>
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 15 SL69_pp14-17_housing_print 16/02/2015 08:09 Page 16
>>> that interim accommodation be provided. Our mass visit, with the efforts of 20 people, ensured Ruth was housed that same day. HASL’s action not only supported the work done by Brixton Advice Centre, it achieved an immediate change in the local authority’s decision not to house Ruth. It was an empowering experience for Ruth and her supporters, who found that by standing their ground they could succeed in changing the local authority’s decision. Taking action as a group enables all members to play an active role in supporting each other. Hackney Housing Group, for instance, has a high proportion of members who speak little English. These members cannot necessarily write a letter for another member, but they can organise and carry out a group action in the housing office. Because the groups are willing to pressure the authorities in order to achieve what their Haringey Housing down. In this house on a busy road in members need to lead decent, dignified lives, Action Group Hackney, 12 rooms were let out to families and their actions can often achieve unexpected successfully demand single people. All of the tenants were migrants. results. Back in 2011 Julieta, one of Hackney housing for a member. Each room cost £300 a week. The house was Housing Group’s long term members brought Picture: Pat Philips. riddled with damp, the ceilings had fallen a letter she had received to the group meeting. down in the communal toilets, the gas and later It was a closure order from the local authority’s the water were shut off. There was no heating environmental health department. The private and winter was coming on. Despite the closure accommodation she lived in was so dangerous order, the local authority made no provision that the local authority were ordering it be shut for the tenants. They had not been able to find Cathy’s got no home
to whom they held a full re-housing duty. indefinite leave to remain in the UK and has by Wendy Pettifer Instead they can discharge that duty by finding a husband and six children. She currently them accommodation in the private sector. stays with her elderly father and two siblings On 12th November 2014, the Supreme Court Combined with the 2012 benefit caps this in a two-bedroom house in Haringey. She decided that no Possession Order is required to has rendered hundreds if not thousands of sleeps with her husband and children in the lawfully evict the homeless from temporary families homeless for a second time around. living room. At the time of writing, Haringey accommodation provided in accordance with Their assured shorthold tenancies, often rat social services had refused to help her. One section 188 (1) of the Housing Act 1996 infested, leaking and damp have become of her children has recently been hospitalised pending a local authority’s decision on whether unaffordable as they do not have enough with meningitis. they are eligible, unintentionally homeless and money to pay the shortfall between their Ms Y was unable to obtain legal advice in priority need – R(ZH and CN) v LB extortionate contractual rent and their when she was made homeless with her three Newham and LB Lewisham. housing benefit. However, in 2014, social daughters by Enfield Council in 2013. She is In 1977 Parliament implemented the services departments are finding that they do British. She was able to stay with a friend for a Homelessness Act 1977 which for the first time not have sufficient budgets to pay for deposits while, but since August 2014 has been living gave the homeless a legal right to apply to a and rent in advance to send people back into with her mother in a one-bed flat, also in local authority for shelter if certain criteria the private sector. Haringey. Her mother has recently been were met. This was after the showing on the I am a solicitor at Hackney Law Centre, harassed by drug addicts who constantly call at BBC of a drama documentary, Cathy Come representing homeless people. The following the flat. Ms Y’s 16-year-old twins, who were Home, which tugged at the hearts of the are examples of cases which illustrate the grave until August 2014 doing well at school, have nation, showing a single mum losing her problems individuals and families are seen their grades plummet. Ms Y already has children to social services after she became encountering with their housing. an uncle who was shot dead and a son in homeless. The Localism Act 2010 removed the Owing to legal aid cuts, Ms X was unable prison. At the time of writing, Haringey social duty endorsed in the Housing Act 1996 on to find a solicitor to help her challenge a services refused to help. local authorities to provide secure decision of intentional homelessness made Both these families became homeless accommodation to those homeless applicants by Redbridge Council in April 2014. She has because they could not pay their private
16 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp14-17_housing_print 16/02/2015 08:09 Page 17
anywhere better to live – and now they faced problems take many years to resolve, with fulfilling their duty to assess them under Part 7 the prospect of street homelessness or moving people receiving quiet support from other of the Housing Act 1996. away from their low wage jobs in central group members. They are accompanied to While homeless people have a right to be London. court hearings and appointments, have letters assessed, few people visiting the homeless person’s Hackney Housing Group visited the written in support of their cases and, often unit know this and so they are often easily property with Julieta and organised for more most important of all, have the chance to deterred from making an application. The first of the residents to become involved. The group share what they are going through with thing LCAP did to counter this was to hand out visited the local authority with over 30 people, sympathetic listeners at regular meetings. information about the right to make a many of them residents. Surprisingly, the local Such sustained group support offers people homelessness application. Armed with authority immediately began to house some of the chance to break through the isolation knowledge about their rights, people could the residents: even those who would not often felt when battling poor housing and demand these were met themselves. If that still did ordinarily be given any help as homeless, who poverty alone. By being connected to others, not work, LCAP organised groups of supporters were not considered priority need or eligible. knowing they are not alone, group members to accompany people back into the office and Yet they still refused to house Julieta, her son gather the strength they need to keep fighting back up their demand for a homelessness and some of the others. In response the group back. Many stay involved with the groups assessment. From the very beginning this work held spirited demonstrations demanding justice and help others in turn. was made possible by the support of sympathetic and fair treatment outside the Hackney Service There is no doubt that timely and effective legal professionals who wrote our ‘Get Your Centre. At one such demonstration, the local legal action is often essential in order to Rights!’ leaflets, offered advice on what direction authority barred all of the entrances to the effectively challenge unlawful decisions by to take with tricky cases and even joined LCAP building and refused to speak to the group. local authorities and the Department for Work themselves as active members. However, after still more campaigning, articles and Pensions. However, legal action alone can Today, the mutual support groups that in the local press and continued do little to change the cultures of disrespect in make up LCAP continue to be supported by a demonstrations, complemented by legal action many housing offices and job centres. network of sympathetic lawyers and advice and complaints written by solicitors, the local Increasingly the poorest are made to bear the workers. If you think you could help please authority backed down and housed Julieta and brunt of budget cuts as the services they rely on contact: londoncoalitionagainstpoverty the others. are withheld, lawfully or not. That is why @gmail.com Not all issues faced by the LCAP group LCAP started in 2007 to use direct action members are resolved so dramatically as the casework to challenge ‘gate-keeping’: the Ellie Schling helped to found London Coalition examples above imply. Often no group action practice whereby homeless applicants are Against Poverty in 2007 and continues to be an is requested or seems appropriate. Some turned away by the housing office without active member of the Hackney Housing Group.
When it was first shown sector rent after benefit cuts. Both have on BBC television in ended up in Haringey. Both were unable to November 1966, Ken get legal advice which would have resulted Loach’s Cathy Come in County Court appeals against the Home drama (with Carol White as Cathy, pictured intentional homelessness decisions. They right) – about one young were evicted from their temporary family’s descent into accommodation without due process, as is homelessness – caused a now endorsed by the Supreme Court. public outcry. There is no longer any safety net. Ultimately the elderly relatives will be unable to cope, and like Cathy in the film Cathy Come Home, my clients will be left homeless on the street with their children. Only this time social services will not be able to step in. Without a secure and stable home, these nine children, aged from three-months-old to 16-years-old, are being placed at serious risk. These are the inhuman consequences of years of austerity and the constant erosion of the welfare state. We must continue to campaign to restore the safety net once provided by the State and for the provision of housing for all those in need.
Wendy Pettifer is a solicitor at Hackney Law Centre.
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 17 SL69_pp18-23_spies_print 16/02/2015 08:10 Page 18 Tinker,tailor
KDEwing,Joan Mahoneyand Andrew Moretta on surv ei
18 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp18-23_spies_print 16/02/2015 08:10 Page 19 or,lawyer,spy?
v eillanceofthe HaldaneSocietyduringthe Cold War
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 19 SL69_pp18-23_spies_print 16/02/2015 08:10 Page 20
“Although strenuous steps have been taken by MI5tocenso close research and examination of what has been released
embers of the Haldane Society no doubt reflect ‘Checkpoint Charlie’, on whether special branch or the security the best-known Berlin service (or both) have infiltrated the Society and Wall crossing point whether as a result they are the subject of between East and West surveillance by the State. If anyone is reading Berlin during the Cold M War. Russian and this article, permit us to put your mind at rest American tanks briefly by suggesting that you are right to reflect and that if history is faced each during the any guide you are almost certainly the subject of surveillance. Berlin Crisis of 1961. This is unless of course you happen to be the reader who is doing the surveilling, though it is likely that you too are being watched, comrade. MI5 files selectively released to the National Archives reveal that the Haldane Society was one of a number of organisations on the left subject to close surveillance, and that the Society was deeply penetrated by the security service. Indeed, it appears that the Haldane Society was subject to surveillance long before it split in the late 1940s, with MI5 agent M/7 unwittingly put up for membership by barrister Dudley Collard. The latter was close to the Communist party and represented party members in high profile cases. The hunt is now on to find the identity of agent M/7. MI5 kept files on tens of thousands of individuals and organisations (including law firms such as Thompsons), though by no means all MI5 files have been released. We suspect that files for release have been very carefully selected, and very carefully weeded, as well as very carefully redacted, to enable historians to write their benign victor’s account of the Cold War. But although strenuous steps have been taken by MI5 to censor what we may or may not see, enough is available by close research and examination of what has been released to enable us to know that the Haldane Society was a target.
awyers had no immunity from MI5 surveillance during the Cold War and progressive lawyers had even less. Solicitors and barristers who were members of the LCommunist party or who were associated with the Communist party were watched. Being a Member of Parliament provided no immunity from surveillance either, with one of the thickest files being that of D N Pritt KC MP, who was close to the Communist party and carefully monitored even during his parliamentary career. But members of the Haldane Society should not be too alarmed; membership was not always a barrier to the Bench, as the example of Mr Justice Lawson (PF 41,933) makes clear. The security service had a particular interest in the Communist party lawyers’ group, an interest that was enough to justify mail checks and tele-checks on individuals who were associated with the group. Francis Loeffler was one such individual, distinguished not only by his membership of the party but also by his marriage to Sabine Kuczynski, whose elder sister Ursula Beurton was (rightly) suspected of espionage on behalf of the USSR. Although deeply involved in espionage, Ursula (alias Sonja) was always several steps ahead of MI5. She left the country at the start of the Klaus Fuchs trial in 1950. Loeffler’s file reveals that his mail had been intercepted intermittently since the 1940s and continuously for almost two years in the early 1950s. This surveillance was said by an MI5 official (applying for a fresh Home Office Warrant (HOW) in the mid 1950s) to have produced a considerable amount of material about the Communist party lawyers’ group, including minutes of its meetings. Some of this information is also on file, providing rich data about a number of Communist party associates. In requesting a fresh HOW,
20 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp18-23_spies_print 16/02/2015 08:10 Page 21 ensor what we may or may not see, enough is available by ased to enable us to know that Haldane was a target ...”
the MI5 official also reveals that he was ‘anxious to have a source of information about the Lawyers’ Group and the Haldane Society, and hope that a check on Loeffler’s mail will provide this.’ It was through individuals such as Loeffler that MI5 thus acquired information about the Haldane Society. In this case the mail-check yielded rich pickings, including the membership list of the Society, gold dust for the security service. While securing access to the Haldane Society was sufficient justification for the exercise of surveillance powers, and while surveillance provided important information, it was not the only source. One file entry refers to a special branch source said to be ‘fairly reliable’, providing information about the Society’s Executive Committee elections on 10th October 1956.
part from this general interest in the affairs of the Society, controversy would excite particular interest, as in the split in 1949, which led to the formation of the Society of Labour Lawyers; Aand again in 1956 over events in Hungary, which split the British left generally. The events in Hungary inevitably exposed the political differences within the Haldane Society, as least as told by MI5’s snitches, some of whose work is retained for posterity in the file of Francis Loeffler, and elsewhere. An MI5 source report dated 5th December 1956 gives a detailed account of these differences over Hungary, the source being said to be ‘a regular source in touch with Haldane Society affairs’. This over-active informant had spoken to the friends of Executive Committee member John Elton, the ‘friends’ being members of the Society; as well as a ‘young acquaintance’ of D N Pritt, the young acquaintance also being a member of the Society. It is not clear if the ‘regular source’ was a Society member. The ‘regular source’ revealed that there were three positions on the Haldane Society’s Executive Committee about a motion that would simultaneously criticise the British government in relation to Suez, and the Soviet Union in relation to Hungary. In the end the informant also revealed that an amended resolution was carried, retaining the criticism of the Soviet Union, and that the Communist party lawyers’ group voted on grounds of conscience, partly to avoid causing another damaging and potentially fatal schism. Information provided to MI5 from a different source (identified as KAFH) reveals that there was grave disquiet at the next meeting of the Communist party lawyers’ group about the Haldane Society vote on Hungary. Apparently incandescent, Ralph Milner complained that the ‘rebels’ (including Loeffler) had breached party rules. Not only that: the disunity had ‘greatly weakened the party’s position in the Haldane Society’. According to the ‘reliable and well placed’ source of this information, Milner’s statement has split the group 50/50, and had revealed Loeffler to be ‘on the verge of a breakdown’.
therwise, the infiltration of the Haldane Society was used to pick up information about individuals of interest, which would require informants to be directed about the Oinformation to be provided. Returning to Neal Lawson, one entry in his personal file from 1957 records that it would be of ‘considerable interest’ to know – for reasons unknown – whether Lawson was in the habit of attending meetings of the Society, and in >>>
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 21 SL69_pp18-23_spies_print 16/02/2015 08:10 Page 22
“The Haldane Society was thus the subject of surveillanc s u b j e c t t o S p e c i a l B r a n c h ...u n d e r c o v e r o f f i c e r s a t i t s m
>>>particular whether he attended the forthcoming AGM Special Branch of the Society, of which he was a Vice President. (SO12) merged in 2006 with the Anti- A copy of the agenda for the 1957 AGM was duly Terrorist Branch procured, the copy appearing in Lawson’s file. An intelligence (SO13) to become report from about the same time, November 1957, revealed Counter Terrorism that an MI5 officer had recently enjoyed lunch with a Haldane Command, (SO15). Society source. This ‘regular source’ appears to have been a According to the Met’s young lawyer ‘in touch with the Haldane Society, and its website, SO15 “brings members’. It is not known if this was the same source as the together expertise in one already referred to, MI5 predictably protecting sources by intelligence analysis anonymity. Whoever he or she was, the source had met and development, investigation and Lawson for coffee and a chat. operational support It appears that much of the chatting related to Malaya activity.” and colonial problems, a matter of great interest to the security service which at the time was concerned that Lawson had been instructed by the Malay rulers to advise on independence. Because of his background, MI5 suspected that Lawson was a Chinese plant to subvert the negotiations. The truth was much more benign. After intense surveillance, it was realised that Lawson – one time Communist party member and donor – had been at school with one of the rulers by whom he was known personally. It also appears, however, that Lawson did ‘not rise at all’ to the source’s impertinent questioning about the Malay question, even when the latter ‘threw in the odd reference’ to John Elton and John Platts Mills and the Haldane Society. The only concession the source was able to extract was an agreement that Lawson would assist him with colonial cases that sometimes came his way, whereupon they parted ‘on good terms’. The report concludes: ‘Source has been instructed to follow up this lead as best he can to get closer to Lawson, with the aim of finding out the latter’s opinions on the Haldane Society activities and policy, and on Malayan problems.’
he Haldane Society was thus the subject of surveillance by interception and infiltration, whether by planting people in the Society, or by cultivating those already there. Like other Torganisations at the time, it was also subject to special branch surveillance, with undercover officers turning up at its meetings and recording who was there and what was said. This information would appear eventually in various files, usually of the individuals who were speaking if they were otherwise the subject of surveillance. This was to be expected and does not deflect attention from the question of who were the informants on the inside. It is unlikely that the identity of informers will ever be formally released, though brief glimpses of these characters are sometimes provided, probably by mistake on the part of the civil servants who weed files before they are deposited at Kew. An example is provided in file LO 02/227, which contains correspondence between the Tory backbencher Cyril Black MP and the Attorney General Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller in 1955. Here we find the MP for Wimbledon writing to the Attorney General about a constituent who would prefer ‘if possible not to have his identity revealed’. The constituent in question was said to be ‘a strong anti- communist’, who had attended a meeting of the Haldane Society at which Jack Gaster was said to have made a speech of ‘treasonable character’ about the Korean conflict. The matter was taken sufficiently seriously to involve the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Theobald Mathew, who advised that it would be very difficult to establish that anything said at
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lance by interception and infiltration... it was also ts meetings ...r e c o r d i n g w h o w a s t h e r e a n d w h a. t” w a s s a i d
a Haldane Society meeting was treasonable, but suggesting also that it would do no harm to interview the informant ‘since he is apparently prepared to supply information on request’. It is unclear whether this suggestion was followed. Unusually, however, the brief exchange of correspondence between Black, Manningham-Buller, Mathew and officials revealed the identity of the informant, the MI5 censor apparently not consulted when this file was opened in December 2007. On 22nd March 1955, Black wrote to Manningham-Buller in the following terms: ‘I have been in communication with my constituent who has authorised me to disclose his name. He is Mr A F H Lindner, Solicitor, practising at 17, Soho Square, W1, whose private address is 2, Ridgeway Gardens, Wimbledon, SW19. Mr Lindner tells me that he has not retained his notes that he took of various statements made at meetings of the Haldane Society which he attended, but, following each meeting, he sent a full report to the special branch as to the statements made which he regarded as being of a treasonable character. You can presumably obtain access to these reports sent by Mr Lindner to the special branch. Mr Lindner would be available for interview if desired.’
e know nothing about Mr Lindner, but note that an A F H Lindner had been an unsuccessful Labour candidate at the 1945 general election. We do not know at this stage whether they are Wthe same person. We have no idea whether Mr Lindner provided other information or who were the other ‘sources’. Any other ‘evidence’ that may tend to link Mr Lindner to other information may be purely speculative and coincidental. Further digging is required if these sources are to be turned up. It is clear from file LO 02/227, however, that anonymity of sources cannot always be guaranteed forever. It is difficult for any rational person to anticipate the value of any of the foregoing information. Indeed, a little insight into the futility of the surveillance was provided when in the 1960s John Bowden visited Greece on behalf of the Haldane Society, at the time of the colonels to investigate alleged human rights violations. The British Embassy in Athens was unsure how to deal with the Society, unable to find it on the Foreign Office’s blacklist of organisations maintained by the shadowy Information Research Department. The Foreign Office advice to Athens, at the time of a Labour government, was that the Haldane Society was to be ‘refuse[d] any assistance beyond routine courtesies’. More significantly, the other advice from the Foreign Office about the Greek visit was that while the Society remained ‘under strong Communist influence’, John Bowden (who had been ‘on the Society’s Executive since about 1958’) was not ‘known as a Communist’. On the contrary, John Bowden, PF 719, 284, was a well-known and much-respected man of the left, having previously been monitored on the occasion of a visit to Warsaw as a guest of the Polish Lawyers’ Association in 1958. Moreover, a special branch report reveals that he was the subject of MI5 surveillance and that indeed he was known to be a member of Communist party lawyers’ group, as confirmed by the Morning Star after his death.
This article was written jointly by Keith D Ewing, Joan Mahoney and Andrew Moretta. Keith D Ewing is professor of public law at King’s College London, Joan Mahoney is a professor of law at Wayne State University and Andrew Moretta is a researcher and PhD student at Liverpool University.
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 23 SL69_pp24-25_mexico43_landscape 2pp A4 16/02/2015 08:10 Page 24
On 26th September 2014, 43 male students from Ayotzinapa went missing in Iguala, Guerrero. They were travelling there to protest at a conference led by the mayor’s wife when local police intercepted them. An official investigation concluded that the students were handed over to the local Guerreros Unidos (‘United Warriors’) crime syndicate and presumably killed. Authorities claimed Iguala’s mayor, José Luis Abarca Velázquez and his wife María masterminded the abduction. The disappearance of the 43 students sparked mass protests in Mexico, Proceso magazine implicated Federal Police and the army in the case and the Attorney General officially declared the 43 students dead on 26th January 2015. The remains of many MÉXICO43 of the 43 are yet to be found and their families’ search for justice continues.
That which returns: A poem for Alexander Mora
by R. Rahal
It was only a molar that returned home that resisted the embrace of fire the earth’s blow the river’s current
Clinging to preserve all his words that now cry out from all of our mouths
A molar and a bone was what they gave his father for all eternity one cold December A light sowed by hatred during an endless September night
So many feet treading unknowingly along the path that might find them So many cries searching fruitlessly for the mouths to which his words belong
How much is left of all of those we are missing?
Translated by Camilo Pérez Bustillo SL69_pp24-25_mexico43_landscape 2pp A4 16/02/2015 08:10 Page 25
Lo que vuelve: poema para Alexander Mora
por R. Rahal
Sólo una muela volvió a casa resistió el abrazo del fuego el golpe de tierra el caudal del río
Se aferró a guardar todas tus palabras que ahora gritan todas nuestras bocas
Muela y hueso le dieron a tu padre para siempre un diciembre frío una luz sembrada por el odio la noche de un septiembre interminable
Tantos pies que recorren sin saber a donde lleva el camino de encontrarlos tantos gritos que buscan sin hallar a que bocas pertenecen sus palabras www.haldane.org ¿Cuánto nos queda de todos los que nos faltan? Lawyer
Image: Subversiones: Agencia Autonoma de Comunicacion MagazineoftheHaldaneSocietyof SocialistLawyers MagazineoftheHaldaneSocietyof 2015 February Number68, Socialist SL69_pp26-27_turkey_print 16/02/2015 08:12 Page 26
In November 2014, members of the Haldane Society, along with European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH) and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) attended as international observers at a trial which has come to be seen by the international community as a witch hunt against human rights lawyers practising in Turkey. Lawyers, journalists and activists came from all over the world to witness the latest hearing in the trial of various members of Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği (Progressive Lawyers Association).
Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği (ÇHD) ÇHD is an organisation that consists of progressive Turkish lawyers. It was established in 1971. The aim of ÇHD is to ‘improve the law; establish a legal system which is based on the liberation of humanity and on the basis of democracy, guaranteed through the public consciousness; to perform actions for preventing all kinds of violations against fundamental rights, primarily the right to life and human dignity’. Despite being banned during the 1990s, ÇHD now has 12 branches across Turkey and about 2,500 members.
Criminal case against the ÇHD lawyers At 4am on 18th January 2013, a three day police operation began which saw the illegal raiding of the offices of ÇHD, the arrest, questioning and charging of 22 of its members arise from the organisation’s outstanding and the remanding in custody of nine of those reputation, the prosecution makes the charged. Breaches acrobatic leap to the assumption that these Eight months following the beginning of lawyers must be members of a terrorist the police operation, the prosecution served a organisation. lengthy indictment containing numerous • The indictment controversially includes offences, of which the most serious are of law and statements from ‘anonymous witnesses’ dated allegations of support, membership, between 2011-12. These statements are relied administration of, and organisational activity upon despite numerous witnesses declaring in within a terrorist organisation. open court that their statements were obtained Court proceedings began on 24th violating while under pressure from the police. December 2013 and have garnered both national and international attention. The Breaches of Turkish law unlawful conduct of the investigations, the During the course of the police investigation spurious nature of the evidence relied upon rights into these matters countless breaches of and the reprehensible decisions of the judiciary domestic law were committed, in themselves involved in this case in particular have led to symptomatic of the political hysteria outcry from the international community. Despite immense surrounding these cases. Examples of such The latest hearing took place on 11th breaches are said to include that: November 2014. Further hearings are due to pressure, human rights • The beginning of the investigation saw the take place on 13th and 14th May 2015. illegal raiding of ÇHD’s offices on 18th lawyers in Turkey have January 2013. The searches were conducted in The evidence violation of Article 130 of the Turkish The prosecution claims that these lawyers are remained resolute, says Criminal Code in that they were conducted supporters, members, organisers, or without the required decision of a court (a administrators of the Revolutionary People’s CarlosOrjuela panel of three judges) and had begun without Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C), which is the Istanbul Bar Association being informed designated as a terrorist organisation by the and without prosecuting officials being European Union. present. When looking closely at the indictment, • The arrest warrants issued against the however, a fallacious air quickly becomes ÇHD lawyers did not contain the necessary apparent. Most striking is the nature of the Above: ÇHD protest Opposite page: ‘legal and factual grounds and reasons’ evidence relied upon. Two such glaring outside court on President of ÇHD, outlined in Article 101 of the Turkish Criminal examples of many are that: 11th November 2014. Selcuk Kozagacli with Code. They were deliberately written in an • Requests for ÇHD lawyers by terrorism The banner says: Secretary General of abstract, unspecific way and failed to provide a suspects detained at the police station are ‘In a place where thieves ELDH Thomas single concrete fact or even accusation. considered as evidence of membership of a and murderers are Schmidt. • Lawyers representing the accused ÇHD terrorist organisation. A statistical analysis of acquitted lawyers in these proceedings have been where people are police station representation of terrorism slaughtered subjected to attacks by the police in the course suspects between 2010 and 2012 purports that where laws are prepared of representing their clients. In the most most DHKP-C suspects requested ÇHD to assault the people, alarming example, these lawyers were attacked lawyers prior to interview. Rather than coming Justice does not exist! outside court by police in riot gear on 20th to the logical conclusion that such requests People’s Law Office’. January 2014.
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this, the Turkish authorities have continuously undermined this presumption at the commencement of and during these proceedings. A pertinent example of this occurred on 30th January 2013, when Prime Minister Erdogan referred to the case by stating that ‘the lawyers have meetings behind 11 steel doors and they perform activities of terrorist organisations’. In the same speech he went on to say: ‘The lawyers are not innocent’. Further prejudicial statements and false information have been fed to the Turkish media which dutifully publishes these missives, creating a sense of hysteria around the case. These allegations and the procedural irregularities seen in the courts represent a major attack on the right to an effective defence in criminal proceedings. Article 16 of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers adopted by the UN in 1990 (the Havana Principles) states that ‘Governments shall ensure that lawyers are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference…’ Article 18 goes on to state that ‘Lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes as a result of discharging their functions.’ By criminalising these individuals for carrying out their professional duties as defence lawyers in representing and advising clients effectively at all stages of the criminal Breaches of International law process, the Turkish authorities are actively carry out fact finding exercises, trial Aside from numerous breaches of domestic intimidating, hindering, harassing and observations and general solidarity work Turkish law not limited to those examples improperly interfering with the conduct of an during their stay. outlined above, the proceedings have seen effective defence. The message is clear: if you On 11th November 2014, members of the violations of fundamental human rights represent someone the State does not like, you above organisations were present for the latest principles by both the police and judicial will be tarred with the same brush as those hearing in the proceedings. The defence authorities. clients. decided to raise issues regarding the As is well known, the right to a fair trial is unconstitutionality of the proceedings given enshrined in various international instruments, Response of the ÇHD the recent abolition of the SECs. It was argued including Article 10 of the Universal Despite the immense pressure facing ÇHD, the by the defence that these cases should be Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14 of the response from these lawyers has been resolute. referred to the Constitutional Court as it had International Covenant on Civil and Political Upon the discovery that their offices were been unlawful for the current courts to bind Rights and Article 6 of the European being raided and colleagues arrested, members themselves by the decisions of the SECs. The Convention on Human Rights. of ÇHD rushed to their Istanbul office to defence also argued that if such a reference However, from the outset the so called protest the illegal actions of the police. The were not to be made, the proceedings should Specially Empowered Courts (SECs) – response of the authorities was to use tear gas commence ab initio. These submissions were designated to investigate, prosecute and try on the lawyers. rejected. cases relating to terrorism and organised crime Many of the lawyers who were taken into It is now expected that the Constitutional – are said to have consistently violated these custody began a hunger strike in protest Court will deliberate on similar issues in principles. Procedural safeguards have been against their treatment at the hands of the relation to separate cases and it is hoped will curtailed which in turn undermines the fairness police both upon arrest and while being issue decisions which will have a positive effect of the proceedings. The courts would, for detained at the police station. on the ÇHD cases prior to the next hearing example, heavily restrict the amount of Further protests and marches with scheduled for 13th May 2015. disclosure available to the defence or would thousands of members of the profession have ÇHD has requested that further lawyers, readily accept illegally obtained evidence by the been organised in response. journalists and human rights activists attend police. The domestic and international On the day of the raids, Selçuk Kozagacli, future hearings, as they can see that the Turkish criticism of these courts was such that they president of the ÇHD and one of the accused, authorities are aware of the unwanted were eventually scrapped and replaced during published a statement which contained the international attention that these cases are the course of these proceedings. following defiant words: attracting. Despite the abolition of the SECs, the new ‘We are the lawyers of the revolutionaries, We encourage all our members to follow the courts which have taken over these cases people in poverty, and the families of the case of the ÇHD lawyers and attend in decided to continue matters at the same stage Kurdish children who were killed with police solidarity with these lawyers at the next of proceedings, thereby adopting the bullets, in short we are the lawyers of the hearing in Istanbul. controversial decisions made by the SECs to oppressed.’ For more information about being part of accept the type of evidence listed above. future delegations, please contact The presumption of innocence is also a key International solidarity [email protected]. element of a fair trial which is enshrined in From the outset, the domestic support for the For further information regarding the ÇHD Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of ÇHD lawyers has been accompanied by please also visit www.eldh.eu and Human Rights. Aside from the obvious burden international solidarity from various national www.iadllaw.org. it places on the prosecution to prove and international associations, including the allegations beyond reasonable doubt, there is Haldane Society, ELDH and the IADL. Carlos Orjuela is a solicitor practicing in criminal also a duty for all public authorities to refrain These groups have sent delegates to law and a member of the Haldane Society’s from prejudging the outcome of a trial. Despite Istanbul over the last two years in order to executive committee.
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 27 SL69_pp28-33_whatremains_print 16/02/2015 08:32 Page 28 What remains is a document about the consequences of the last attack on the Gaza Strip in 2014. These photos were taken during the last days of the war and the first week of the cease fire.
A family waits among the rubble at Shujaia neighbourhood, Gaza City.
28 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp28-33_whatremains_print 16/02/2015 08:32 Page 29
Eduardo Soteras Jalil is a freelance documentary photographer. He is a founding member of the Activestills collective and a creator of ActiveVision, an organisation dedicated to participatory photography and video. His work and photography can be viewed at www.eduardosoteras.com.
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 29 SL69_pp28-33_whatremains_print 16/02/2015 08:32 Page 30
Left: A man stares at the remains of the Ministry of Finance building in central Gaza City.
30 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp28-33_whatremains_print 16/02/2015 08:32 Page 31
Right: Detail of the computer screens at the security office of the electrical plant of Gaza. The photo used as a desktop image is an image of the bombing at the plant during the attacks.
Left: The El Abed family posing at the hut of an UNRWA school in Tel el Hawa. Mr Khaled Khalil El Abed (49, on the right) is a welder. He lost both his workshop and his three floor house during the attacks.
Right: Details of the remains of the Italian compound tower, bombed during the last days of the attacks.
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 31 SL69_pp28-33_whatremains_print 16/02/2015 08:32 Page 32
Left: A boy, seen through Right: Naddar Hayyela, a net, carrying water on 30-year-old father of a street of Gaza. eight children, holding his newborn daughter Gaza, who was born during the attacks. Following the start of the attacks Mr Hayyela and his family had to look for shelter in an UNRWA school. They are originally from Shujaia.
Internally displaced children in the surroundings of the UNRWA school where they are sheltered, in the Tel el Hawa neighbourhood, Gaza City.
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Socialist Lawyer February 2015 33 SL69_pp34-35_DHRD_print 16/02/2015 08:28 Page 34
In February 2012, the Haldane Society, Amnesty International and European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights brought HUMAN together over 150 delegates to attend the first ‘Defending Human Rights Defenders’ conference in London. Human Rights Defenders in many parts of the world risk their livelihoods and even their lives out of commitment to social justice. RIGHTS Many have been murdered, ‘disappeared,’ assaulted, persecuted or unlawfully detained for defending the rights of the oppressed. DEFENDERS Protecting these defenders is a crucial challenge. Iran Paul Heron asks you to help the cases of three Iranian trade unionists
The recent developments in the Middle East rights which are the subject of those imprisonment by the Revolutionary Court for have seen western powers slowly realigning conventions’. The ILO provides cover for Iran threatening national security for organising their allegiances with talk of ‘normalising’ by allowing it to remain an active participant workers’ protests. Later an appeal court relations with Iran. At the same time the of ILO activities, while it continues not to even reduced his sentence to five years Iranian workers who protest against poor ‘work towards’ allowing workers to form imprisonment. Last year he went on hunger working conditions, pay and for the right to independent unions. strike to demand a transfer back to a medical organise continue to suffer repression at the We outline below the plight of three wing of Evin prison in north Tehran and to hands of the regime and exploitation by the individuals. Their cases highlight the receive medical treatment for his longstanding Iranian State and private employers. repression by the Iranian State against health problems. As a matter of Iranian law it is not illegal to workers’ representatives and solidarity action. During this time his home was searched in organise trade unions in Iran – although order for the Ministry of Intelligence to open a officially sanctioned State-run unions are used Free Shahrokh and Reza new case against him. Subsequently on 29th to repress workers’ struggles. At the same time, Shahrokh Zamani has been imprisoned in Iran December 2014, Behnam was tried in branch workers organising independent unions face since January 2012. He is sentenced to 11 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, harassment, repression and are often jailed for years in prison. He is a member and activist presided over by Judge Salavati, on new lengthy periods charged with ‘…acting against with the Paint Workers’ Union of Tehran. In charges of communicating, from prison, with national security by establishing or prison he has been tortured, denied medication Ahmad Shahid (the United Nations Special membership of groups opposed to the system’ and denied visitors. Shahrokh has been on Rapporteur on the human rights situation in and ‘spreading propaganda against the hunger strike twice during his time in prison the Islamic Republic of Iran) and with a system’. Once in jail union activists are often which has left him with persistent health political organisation. Behnam was sentenced denied a place on a prison wing for political problems. to a further nine and a half years prisoners. Torture is common place as is denial Reza Shahabi has been in prison since June imprisonment. This is something that needs to of medication or treatment for injuries 2010. He is sentenced to six years. He is the be vigorously protested. sustained from torture. Treasurer and Executive Board member of the We call all lawyers, socialists, trade Iran is a State party to the International Tehran Bus Workers’ Union. In prison he has unionists, workers’ associations and political Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of been tortured, been denied medical treatment organisations inside and outside Iran to give which Article 22 (1) states: ‘Everyone shall and has developed serious back, neck, hip and practical backing and efforts to attract have the right to form and join trade unions other health problems as a result of being international support for Behnam. We call for for the protection of his interests’. Iran is also a tortured. Reza has also been on hunger strike this latest conviction to be overturned and State party to the International Covenant on twice in protest at his prison conditions, which Behnam to be released. Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article has also affected his health. Reza was finally Please send protest letters to the Iranian 8 of which guarantees the ‘right of everyone to transferred to a secure hospital ward for government leaders and Iranian judicial form trade unions and join the trade union of treatment in September 2014 and has had the services at the following addresses: his choice’. Yet Iran repeatedly attacks, first of the operations he needs. [email protected] imprisons or intimidates those organising [email protected] independent trade unions. Free Behnam Ebrahimzadeh [email protected] Iran has ratified five of the eight core Behnam Ebrahimzadeh is an imprisoned [email protected] conventions of the International Labour labour and children’s rights activist and a With copies to [email protected] Organisation (ILO). It has not however member of the Coordinating Committee to ratified C87 (Freedom of Association and Help Form Workers’ Organisations in Iran. For more information visit Protection of the Right to Organise He was coming towards the end of one www.karzarpki.com (Campaign in Support of Convention), C98 (Right to Organise and prison sentence but is now facing a new term the Workers of Iran) and www.iwsn.org/ Collective Bargaining Convention) or C138 of imprisonment. You can sign the change.org petition for the (Minimum Age Convention). The ILO states Currently he is in an Iranian prison having release of Shahrokh and Reza at that for the core conventions ‘all members, already served four and a half years of a five http://chn.ge/13nnsgv and can get involved in even if they have not ratified the conventions in year sentence. While he is serving his sentence the campaign for Shahrokh and Reza by question, have an obligation arising from the his 14-year old son is under treatment for emailing [email protected]. very fact of membership in the organisation to leukemia, which is adding additional pressure respect, to promote and to realise, in good to him. Paul Heron is a solicitor at Public Interest faith and in accordance with the constitution, He was arrested by security forces on 12th Lawyers and a member of the Haldane Society’s the principles concerning the fundamental June 2010 and was sentenced to 20 years Executive Committee.
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Colombia This is the text of a letter from Haldane about Colombian activist Liliany Obando
To: National Penitentiary and Incarceration aforementioned citizen have been violated. She Institute (Inpec), Dr. Ana Sofía Hidalgo finds herself under house arrest since 5th Alvarado, Director, Bogotá Women’s Prison – August 2014, as ordered by the Ninth criminal Buen Pastor, Carretera 58 No, 80 – 95, Entre court of the Bogotá Special Circuit and Rios District, Tel.: (57) (1) 630 77 24 – 630 20 confirmed by the Bogotá Superior Tribunal – 37, E-mail: [email protected] the criminal division – and executed by the and Dr. Debora Useche, Chief Judicial Office, Seventh Court of Implementation of Penalties Bogotá Women’s Prison, Carretera 58 No, 80 and Security Measures. It is a situation with – 95, Entre Rios District, Tel. 57) (1) 6600771 which you are quite familiar. – 3111626, E-mail: It is clear now, with the facts given here, that [email protected] that office has not sent all the required documentation for Conditional Liberty. Not In reference to case of: Liliany Patricia Obando only is the right to freedom, personal integrity, Villota, C.C. 30.7345.041 due process and a trial accepted as being violated, but such a failing skirts norms of the Concerning: Favourable resolution of criminal statute. One such is Fraudulent petition for Conditional Liberty Judicial Resolution, as established under I, Michael Mansfield QC, in my capacity as This letter is featured on the pages of Article 454. Its text reads: ‘one in any way President of the Haldane Society of Socialist the Haldane Society’s Defending evading fulfillment of an obligation imposed Human Rights Defenders website: Lawyers have become familiar through her http://haldane-dhrd.org under Judicial Resolution will incur legal team and through various human rights imprisonment for one to four years and a fine NGO’s, both national and international, of the For more information on the case of of from five to 50 times the current minimum situation of the defender of human rights Liliany Obando readers can visit the salary.’ Liliany Patricia Obando Villota. She remains Justice For Colombia website at In regard to the foregoing, it also takes on deprived of her freedom in arbitrary fashion www.justiceforcolombia.org possible characteristics of behaviour subject to even though she has completed three fifths of discipline as established under Article 27 of the sentence imposed on her and thereby has Law 734 of 2001, the Unified Disciplinary gained the right to enjoy ‘conditional liberty’, accomplish the foregoing. Nevertheless, that Code. or parole. commitment has only been fulfilled partially. This may be the occasion to remind you that I am concerned that: Your office sent material dated 23rd – 24th the honourable Constitutional Court Since August 2014, the citizen’s lawyer and December 2014 that contained part of the approximately 14 years ago declared, through she herself have petitioned the ‘Seventh Court documentation mentioned above, but still you Ruling T-153/98, that there exists in of Implementation of Penalties and Security refuse to send a Favourable Resolution, one Colombian prisons ‘a state of unconstitutional Measures’ asking that she be granted that would take into consideration the time affairs’. It results from a series of factors that conditional liberty. that citizen Liliany Obando was confined in violate and adversely affect human rights and The Seventh Court for Implementation of that establishment as a matter of Preventative human dignity of those persons deprived of Penalties and Security Measures, on at least Detention; that is to say, from 8th August 2008 their liberty. In homage to rules and basic three occasions, has required that the Office of to the date of her release on Provisional Liberty, principles governing prison and penitentiary Women’s Imprisonment in Bogotá provide 1st March 2012. That is the essential systems at the international level, these documentation that, according to Colombian information required for Citizen Liliany circumstances must be ended. penal legislation, is necessary for such liberty to Obando to be granted Conditional Liberty. It is likewise necessary for you to recall your be granted. Article 471 of the Code of Criminal duty to honour decisions of the judges of the The Tenth Civil Circuit Court, in the Tutela Procedure establishes that: Republic under penalty of incurring decision of 28th October 2014 ordered that ‘A sentenced person found to be in responsibilities of a disciplinary and criminal within a term of ten days a ‘clear, precise, and circumstances anticipated in the Criminal Code nature through your non-observance. thorough’ response be made regarding the may seek conditional liberty from the Judge of On account of all of this, I lend support to aforementioned situation. It referred to the fact Implementation of Penalties and Security the petition various personalities and prisoner that the request had been ignored and that a Measures as an adjunct to a favourable support organisations have sent to your office, Judge of the Republic had been disregarded. resolution by the disciplinary council, or specifically the one demanding that the Otherwise their office would have proceeded in lacking that, by the director of the respective document on a Favourable Resolution be sent a prompt fashion. prison establishment.’ to the competent judge. That document is In a meeting on 18th December 2014 with Take into account furthermore that the necessary in order to fulfill requirements the deputy director of that entity (Women s aforementioned petition has been up in your through which the aforementioned citizen may Imprisonment) Dr. Aldemar Echeverry and´ office since August 2014. be granted Conditional Liberty. with representatives of several NGO’s, congress At the time of this petition, we observe with Yours sincerely, persons and lawyers representing Liliany much concern the persistent and systematic Michael Mansfield QC, President, Haldane Obando, a commitment was made to way that the rights of due process of the Society of Socialist Lawyers
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Feeding the vultures: US law in the service of the one per cent
The United States’ courts are actively promoting the interest of finance capital. Jeremy Smith shows what this means by looking at Argentina’s battle with Paul Singer. forbidding Argentina from paying a cent of interest to exchange bond-holders, unless at the Since 2005, Argentina has paid exchange same time it paid NML the entirety of principal Paul Singer is one of the USA’s richest bond-holders their interest as and when due. and rolled-up interest under the original bonds, billionaires, owner of Elliott Associates and its No question. Until, that is, last month when it a staggering 1.5 billion US dollars. Cayman Island ‘vehicle’ NML. He financially ‘defaulted’ again – thanks entirely to decisions backed Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential by the US courts (the original bonds give the Judge discriminates in favour of Singer election, and is, says Fortune magazine, ‘a New York courts jurisdiction), which give Far from providing equal treatment between passionate defender of the 1 per cent’. extraordinary preference to Singer’s financial the sets of bond-holders, the judge did the His speciality is buying up distressed interests. How come? precise opposite – patently discriminating in sovereign debt (bonds) dirt cheap, and then, favour of Singer and against the exchange through ‘vulture funds’ like NML, relentlessly Aha, pari passu! bond-holders. litigating to enforce judgments for the face NML long ago obtained judgment against This was not required by law. An injunction value of the original bonds, plus compound Argentina for the full sum due under the is a discretionary remedy. The judge did not interest. This usurious outcome is only possible original bonds. This was not in dispute. But have to make an order, or if he did make one, because states and their usually poor peoples how to enforce? That was the vultures’ he could have ordered Argentina to pay NML cannot – unlike companies and individuals – go problem. Try as they might, they could not lay in the same reduced proportion, and extended bankrupt. hands on juicy Argentine assets. Finally, in timeline, as the exchange bond-holders. But Argentina’s economy collapsed in 2001 2012, they hit upon the pari passu (equal Judge Griesa’s moral compass is so well- owing largely to the foolish policy of tying the step) clause in the bond contract, which attuned to Singer’s that he openly defended this peso one-to-one to the US dollar, with full states: unequal treatment. convertibility. With IMF support, it borrowed ‘the payment obligations of the Republic The story does not end there. Argentina has large sums at ever-increasing interest rates to under the securities shall at all times rank at refused on principle to pay the vulture funds. It defend dollar parity – to no avail. GDP fell 25 least equally with all its other present and deposited interest due to exchange bond- per cent and the peso’s value with it. External future external indebtedness.’ holders in the Buenos Aires branch of the US debts were payable in dollars. Unable to pay, in New York Judge Griesa interpreted this – in bank acting as trustee for the innocent 2002 Argentina defaulted. a way no other court had done – as meaning exchange bond-holders – which is barred by Between 2005 and 2010, 93 per cent of that Argentina was obliged to pay NML at the Judge Griesa from distributing it to them. Argentina’s creditors accepted a deal to receive same time as it paid exchange bond-holders. new exchange bonds paying about 30 per cent This reversed the international bond markets’ The ‘contempt’ proceedings of the original. Singer, on the contrary, bought understanding of the law, and strengthened This has led to another absurd episode in an up chunks of defaulted original debt on the vultures’ hands everywhere. increasingly surreal legal drama. On 21st secondary market at around 20 per cent of face But Judge Griesa went further, and in a August 2014, NML’s counsel applied to Judge value. truly partial decision, made an injunction Griesa to find Argentina in contempt, and to
36 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp36-37_argentina_print 16/02/201508:13Page37 Supreme Court, however, made its ownto accept a further appeal by Argentina.Appeals TheCourt and the Supreme Court judiciary.refused His injunction was upheldJudge by Griesathe is not a crazy outlierDon’t in today’s trust US fairness of US courts finding. Argentina has appealed against the contemptimpose. NML are seeking $50,000 per writing,day. he had yet to decide on parliamentthe penalty to topass legislation. At theparts time of’ ofhis injunction, by getting nowits takingelected steps in an attempt to thatevade the criticalrepublic of Argentina has contemptbeen and of is his court stating: ‘the Judgeproblem Griesa is finally held that Argentinarefused was to in let go, and on 29th Septemberoccasion to2014, find Argentina in contempt.invited NML to set foot in, he declined on that afternoon.’ the measure that is really proposalrequired of thisthe President ofcourt the orderscountry, and injunctions.that’s To nullify that President’s announcement was creditors. parliament to authorise it to pay moneyintroducing due legislationto into its elected ‘law’ – condemning a sovereign State for control and jurisdiction of this court.’interest payments in Argentina and outsidemechanism the to pay the exchange bond-holderseffect of gutting the order, [byCongress providing] of Argentinaa that would have the order, most recently: punish it for ‘cumulative violations’ of his But aware perhaps of the quagmire he was ‘invalid, illegal, and in violation of current Judge Griesa, for his part, stated that the This is imperial overreach in the guise of ‘the introduction of legislation in the interests of finance capital. neoliberalism, and actively promote the have now been captured by the ideologythe USof courts – as well as the Argentinapolitical litigationsystem – demonstrates just howadherence far to norms of justice. No longer.widely respected The internationally for its general 2014) US judiciary.’ not – trust the fairness and competence of the Stiglitz’s recent words, persuasive, dissenting judgment. In JosephRuth Bader Ginsburg delivered a lone,W legallyBush, gave the majority decision. JusticeJustice Scalia, appointed by President assets.George The clever but extremely conservativesovereign States’ protection from seizuretransnational of implications; the effect isinterpretation to limit of sovereign immunity, dubiouswith decision in favour of NML on the domestic affairs of the Argentine republic’.this would be ‘an unlawful interferenceforeign in State.’the Any breach by the UScan courtsthey beof questioned by the organsforth of in any the Argentine constitution. sovereigntyIn no case of the people and the principlespolitical organsset are ‘subject only togovernment the of Argentina recalled that Kerryits a day before the contempt finding, the ruthless politico-legal aggression measuresof the willvultures. not alone put anclauses’ end toare the under discussion, suchinterests. technical While new bond ‘collectivefairly actionbalancing debtors’ and creditors’system for resolving sovereign debtpressing disputes, need for an internationallyThe sorryrecognised NML v Argentina sagaresolution highlights the system The need for a fair sovereign debt- Not so long ago, the US Supreme Court was ‘Sovereign borrowers will not – and should In a letter to US Secretary of State John (Project Syndicate, 7th August of developing countries’. funds to paralyse the debt-restructuring efforts for developing and developed countries’. all future debt-restructuring processes, speculativeboth nature. Such funds pose ainternational risk to courts have revealed their highly that: Santa Cruz (Bolivia) in June 2014 affirmed Germany and Japan. against this motion, they include thecould USA, engageUK, in…’. Only 11 states voteddeterrent to disruptive litigation that sovereigncreditors debts, which will also act newas legal‘a framework for the restructuringStates. of The UN General Assembly calledand forof a the influential G77 + China recentgroup resolutionsof of the UN General courts’Assembly abuse of their powers is growing,Meanwhile, with international opposition to theInternational US opposition to vultures grows newspaper on 13th October 2014. version was published in www.primeeconomics.org ). A slightly editedPolicy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIMEarticle was first published on the websiteHaldane of Society of Socialist Lawyers. ThisEconomics and a Vice-President of the Jeremy Smith is Co-Director of PRIME in the service of Paul Singer’s patentlyinterests. and publicly contorted legal haveprinciples cause to thank Judge Griesa fordestined having to so fail. Perhaps, in due course,sovereign we States.will This legal ‘land-grab’individuals is also and companies, but also overterritorial other jurisdiction, not only over courts have decided to claim ever greaterbut surely extra- seeping away from the USA,At athe timeUS when economic supremacy isUS slowlycourts’ overreach ‘the importance of not allowing vultureIt stressed: ‘Recent actions of vulture funds in Similarly, the G77 in its Declaration of Socialist Lawyer The Morning Star February 20 15
37 Picture: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk SL69_pp38-41_rightsofwomen-fisher_print 16/02/201508:06Page38
38 Picture: http://rightsofwomen.org.uk Access denied Socialist Lawyer to justice and on fundamental Emmarights Scott and obligations Recent Government reforms to legal aid, writes February 20 , are a direct attack on women’s access 15 SL69_pp38-41_rightsofwomen-fisher_print 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 39
Women’s ability to obtain and benefit from their family law rights and remedies is directly dependent upon their ability to access legal information, advice and representation. Women experiencing violence need advice on how they can protect themselves from violence by seeking non-molestation or occupation orders; how to divide joint assets and debts following relationship breakdown; deal with the family home; make arrangements for children and organise child maintenance. Rights of Women believes that the provision of legal advice and representation is a fundamental part of a woman’s right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is enshrined in the United Kingdom’s commitment to the provision of free or low-cost legal aid when it signed the Beijing Declaration, adopting the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995. Yet the recent reforms to the legal aid scheme brought in by the Government are a direct attack on women’s access to justice and on those fundamental rights and obligations. Since the publication of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill in 2010, Rights of Women together with other organisations working to prevent violence against women, has campaigned hard to protect access to justice for women and in particular to hold the Government to their promise that legal aid for family law cases would not be lost to those affected by domestic violence. During our campaign we worked alongside the wider campaigns to protect the legal aid scheme from the deep cuts proposed by the Government led by the Justice Alliance and the Law Society’s Sound off for Justice campaign. We worked closely with parliamentarians in both houses, gave evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Legal Aid, met with Ministers and civil servants from the Ministry of Justice and protested outside Parliament. Our campaign achieved important victories during the passage of the Bill. Our lobbying ensured that the cross Government definition of domestic violence was included in the Act and the broadening of the domestic violence evidence gateway to include evidence including referral to a multi-agency risk assessment conference and reports from health professionals. However, despite these important victories, the cuts to the legal aid scheme introduced in April 2013 have had a devastating impact on the women who contact our services and our partner organisations. A year after the implementation of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) and the new domestic violence evidence gateway criteria for family law legal aid, our research demonstrated that the legal aid regulations were restricting access to legal advice and representation to women affected by domestic violence and denying access to safety and justice to the very women whom the Government expressly sought to protect from the removal of family law from the scope of the legal aid scheme. Published in March 2014, our research report Evidencing domestic violence: a year on demonstrated the very significant barriers which women affected by violence experience in accessing family law legal aid. Our survey of women who had experienced or were experiencing domestic violence found that 43 per cent did not have the prescribed forms of evidence to access family law legal aid. Of those who did, 23 per cent had to wait longer than two weeks to get copies of the evidence. Our survey also revealed that finding a legal aid solicitor was becoming harder with 33 per cent of women having to travel between five and 15 miles to find a legal aid solicitor and 13 per cent having to travel more than 15 miles. >>>
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 39 SL69_pp38-41_rightsofwomen-fisher_print 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 40 Picture: http://rightsofwomen.org.uk Picture:
>>> Most shocking to us was that 46.5 per reviewing the amended regulations, indicates weight of evidence presented that the criteria cent of women took no action in relation to that although the amendments and additions to creates a bar to family law legal aid to those their family law problem as a result of not being the evidence criteria have made a very slight affected by domestic violence: able to apply for legal aid, leaving them unable difference to women’s ability to access family ‘I am satisfied that the Claimant has shown a to escape from violent relationships or rebuild law legal aid, the fact that 38 per cent of women good arguable case that some victims of serious their and their children’s lives after separation. remain unable to evidence domestic violence in domestic violence, who are genuinely in need of Women we spoke to gave really powerful accordance with the amended evidence criteria legal aid, cannot fulfill the requirements of testimony to the impact that not being eligible demonstrates that it remains far too restrictive. regulation 33. Typically, victims are excluded in for advice and representation was having. The Again women talked very graphically about the circumstances where serious domestic violence following are two such examples: impact of restricting access to legal aid, for led to a complete breakdown of the relationship, ‘I want to apply for a divorce but have been example: and then, more than 24 months later, there is an told it will be complex so I need a solicitor but I ‘I’m in a legal “black hole”. I don’t qualify application by the perpetrator of the violence for cannot afford to get one. I want to sort out child for legal aid and cannot afford a solicitor. So contact with a child of the family, or ongoing contact as my kids are at risk from my husband, after years of sexual and emotional abuse I am contact arrangements break down. By the date but cannot afford to do that. I want to get a left to deal with my son’s father (the of application for legal aid, their evidence of court order for payments so my children do not perpetrator) alone. How can this be right? domestic violence is older than 24 months, but suffer because I cannot afford clothing for them, Where do I go?’ they remain fearful of their former partner.’ but without legal aid I cannot do this. This is For this reason, in May 2014, we issued Internationally, criticism of the legal aid having a detrimental impact on the children and judicial review proceedings against the Secretary reforms has also been vociferous. The myself. I am living in limbo because I cannot of State for Justice. Represented by the Public Committee on the Elimination of afford to do anything about it.’ Law Project and supported by the Law Society, Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), in its ‘I am unable to keep my children safe our claim specifically challenged the lawfulness seventh periodic report of the UK, expressed because I was financially abused by my husband of regulation 33 of the Civil Legal Aid concern about LASPO saying that it ‘unduly to the point where I have no money to pay a (Procedure) Regulations 2012 made under restricts women’s access to legal aid’. CEDAW solicitor properly. The changes to legal aid have section 12 of LASPO. We argued that the urged the UK to ‘[e]nsure effective access by ensured that my husband is able to financially evidence requirements set out in regulation 33 women to courts and tribunals, in particular abuse me into a position I cannot escape from are ultra vires as they substantially narrow the women victims of violence’ and to and he has the full backing of the State.’ statutory definition of domestic violence in ‘[c]ontinuously assess the impact of the reforms Using the evidence we had gathered we were LASPO. The regulations preclude women who to legal aid on the protection of women’s rights’. able to successfully lobby the Ministry of Justice experience forms of violence set out in the So concerned was the Committee that it has to widen the evidence criteria and welcomed definition, such as financial and other forms of requested the UK to report on action taken on amendments and additions to the evidence psychological abuse, which are more difficult or these concerns in 2015. criteria introduced in April 2014. These impossible to evidence and by setting the Without legal aid, women affected by amendments to the legal aid regulations enabled arbitrary two year time limits on the validity of domestic violence feel unable to access the kinds women with other forms of evidence, including most of the forms of evidence. of legal remedies which enable them to safely evidence that their perpetrator was on police Permission to bring the claim was granted by exit violent relationships. We pursued the bail and evidence of referral to a domestic Mr Justice Burnett on 19th September 2014 and judicial review challenge on behalf of those violence support organisation by a health a full hearing took place before Lord Justice women in order to hold the Government to professional, to access family law legal aid. Fulford and Mrs Justice Bennett on 12th account on their promise to continue to make However, fundamental problems remain December 2014. Judgment was given on 22nd family law legal aid available to victims of with the domestic violence evidence gateway. January 2015 (Rights of Women v The Lord domestic violence. We intend to appeal the The strict evidence requirements in particular Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice court’s decision and will continue to campaign make it difficult, if not impossible, for women to [2015] EWHC 35 (Admin)). to ensure that women affected by violence have evidence emotional and psychological abuse and In a devastating judgement for survivors of access to safety and justice. the two year time limit on most of the evidence domestic violence Mrs Justice Lang dismissed For more information about Rights of simply does not reflect the reality of the ongoing our application. However, while finding that the Women’s case and the campaign please visit risk of violence women and children experience. Lord Chancellor had not exceeded his powers www.rightsofwomen.org.uk. Our further research on the amended under LASPO in creating the evidence criteria regulations, Evidencing domestic violence: set out in regulation 33 she acknowledged the Emma Scott is the Director of Rights of Women.
40 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp38-41_rightsofwomen-fisher_print 16/02/2015 08:06 Page 41
Obituary MichaelFisher1946–2015
Solicitor Michael Fisher, who died on 7th January 2015, was one of the pioneers of legal aid practice and was the founding partner of two significant and influential legal aid firms: Fisher Meredith and Christian Fisher (later Christian Khan), writes Margaret Gordon. Throughout his long career he was always committed to providing high quality representation to individuals so they were equipped to assert their rights against the State. Although Michael would probably not have described himself as a campaigning lawyer, he was a friend and mentor to many longstanding Haldane Society activists. He acted for many defendants who faced political prosecutions and was totally committed to ensuring that his clients, however marginalised and unpopular, received equal treatment from the courts. Michael trained as a lawyer in the City but shortly after qualification decided that commercial practice did not suit him and changed direction to represent the poor and disadvantaged. He established the Waterloo Legal Advice Centre with Helena Kennedy QC, who recalls the tensions in Thatcher’s Britain. The firm into the country from Zimbabwe illegally, that criminal defence lawyers were regarded developed into a leading human rights kidnapped by the security services to get him with suspicion and hostility not just by the solicitors’ practice. Michael left the firm in tried in this country. He’d tried to get his police but by the courts. 2002 to become a sole practitioner. lawyers to run an abuse of process argument at Longstanding Haldane Society executive Michael’s most important work centred on his trial but they had refused. He was committee member Richard Harvey recalls: defending IRA suspects. He acted among convicted and sentenced to a long custodial ‘Michael’s passion for justice was, if others for the Brighton bombers and for Paul sentence. Mike knew there was something in possible, even deeper than his passions for Hill, one of the Guildford Four whose cases this point and we ran it ten years later. We music and Chelsea football club. We first met were overturned on appeal. were initially refused legal aid and permission at the Waterloo Legal Advice Centre where, These cases have become notorious for the to go to the Court of Appeal and we had no with Helena Kennedy, we were weekly way in which police and prosecutors rode material save for an assertion and some scraps volunteers in the early 1970s. Starting out as a rough shod over defendants’ rights to secure of Zimbabwean law but in the end Mike’s wet-behind-the-ears criminal barrister, I was convictions and yet conviction after conviction hunch was completely vindicated. We got often sent to court with a bare back sheet and was to be overturned in the Court of Appeal permission on a hearing before the full court, little or no information about the case, just after long, tenacious campaigns. The tenacity the Crown served a document setting out “instructions” to do my best for the hapless of Michael and other lawyers in these cases exactly what we needed and the Court of client. By contrast a brief from Michael always lead to legislation and guidelines governing the Appeal overturned Mr Mullen’s conviction.’ had a thorough analysis of the strengths and giving of confessions, disclosure and collection One of Michael’s great qualities was his weaknesses of the case. He cared deeply about of forensic evidence. inexhaustible curiosity about people whether his clients and focused foremost on their Helena Kennedy QC eloquently described they were colleagues or clients and humanity, whatever their alleged criminality.’ his work in the obituary she wrote about understanding what motivated them. Many In 1975 Michael founded Fisher Meredith Michael in The Guardian: significant and successful lawyers were his with Eileen Meredith (later Pembridge). ‘Through a friend, Mike met Bernadette protégées and became his friends. One of It was the days before the Police and Devlin, the Northern Irish civil rights them, campaigner Matt Foot, writes ‘Mike Criminal Evidence Act 1984 had been campaigner, when she was briefly an MP. In Fisher had the best qualities for a legal aid introduced and solicitors had no right of access 1975, Bernadette contacted Mike asking him to lawyer, shrewdness, modesty, humour and to suspects who were held in police custody. help a young man called Jimmy Kelly, who had determination. He took on cases for the Michael and his fellow practitioners been arrested and taken to Southampton on underdog. The unpopular cases. He helped sometimes waited all night to access clients in charges of possessing explosives. So began people through the turmoil. His close friend custody and if denied that access their only Mike’s long experience of doing Irish cases. His barrister Pam Rose has written that: ‘The legal remedy was habeas corpus. reputation as an assiduous, dedicated and profession has lost a champion who fought In 1985, Michael founded his second law highly effective lawyer spread and, through the consistently throughout his too short life for firm Christian Fisher with Haldane Society 1970s and into the 80s, he became the lawyer justice for his clients. He never considered Vice President Louise Christian. In its early Irish families contacted when one of their own anyone to be less deserving of his attention or days the firm was based in four rooms in was in trouble.’ to be ineligible for the best legal advice and Covent Garden next to the Royal Opera One of Michael’s longest cases was the appeal representation.’ House and not far from the now closed Bow of Nicholas Mullen. Counsel in the case Michael was the son of two musicians and Street Magistrates’ Court. The firm started Campaspe Lloyd-Jacob recalls: had life long passions for music and his with two partners, one secretary, one trainee ‘He had an instinct for hunting out and football team Chelsea. and had just two cases. Both cases, one pursuing good points which had eluded He is survived by his wife Florence involving the Brighton bombing and the other everyone else. Nicholas Mullen had been Bousquet, his children Maxim and Eva and his the civil defence of 49 left-wing Liverpool convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions sister Barbara. councillors who were facing a surcharge for (helping an IRA plot) and had been refusing to set a ‘cuts’ driven budget, represented by other lawyers ten years before. Margaret Gordon is a partner at Imran Khan and concerned issues that went right to the heart of Mr Mullen complained that he was brought Partners, incorporating Christian Khan Solicitors
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In 2012 the UK introduced a visa regime that some of the long-term effects of the visa on commit suicide because of the harassment that does not permit domestic workers that arrive those that may have escaped their employers. she suffered. in the country accompanying an employer to All of the workers that participated in the The Government suggests that some change employer, even if they have been study were women and almost all of them were safeguards are in place before and upon arrival, exploited or abused. The workers’ residency migrant workers already before coming to the in order to protect these workers, such as an status is lawful for as long as the employer UK. Originally, they come from countries in employment contract before arrival and with whom they entered employs them, to a Southeast Asia (such as the Philippines or information on labour rights at the Embassy or maximum of six months. The period of six Indonesia), South Asia (India) or North Africa, at the airport. However, the interviewees months is not renewable. Domestic workers and they migrated to work for employers in the reported that these were either not are generally described as a vulnerable group Middle East or North Africa. They arrived in implemented in practice or were ineffective. in the literature, because they are most of the the UK from the Middle East or North Africa. The interviewees said that they did not know times migrants, they work in the privacy of the Almost all domestic workers interviewed said about the details of their visa prior to arrival in employers’ home, they perform a job that is that they had dependents in their country of the UK. They also said that they had extremely undervalued and underpaid, but also because origin, and migrated in the first place in order vague knowledge of UK labour rights, such as they are often excluded from labour to support their dependents. a minimum wage or maximum working time. protection legislation. The UK overseas For reasons explained below, even if these domestic worker visa has been criticised for Work and life before and upon arrival safeguards were in place, though, they would taking this vulnerability to an extreme. It The interviewees said that their working not provide sufficient protection to domestic should not come as a surprise that academics conditions before arriving in the UK were very workers. and NGOs have argued that the overseas poor. Their tasks covered every aspect of domestic worker (ODW) visa leads to housework: caring for children or elderly Work and life after arrival situations that can be described as ‘slavery’. people, cleaning, shopping, cooking and Some of the interviewees explained that they Between 15,000 and 16,000 people arrive serving. Their salaries were reported to be as did not want to come to the UK, but that the each year in the UK with an ODW visa, but low as £50 per month and to generally range employers required them to do so. One of the the Home Office does not provide any further between £100 to £250 per month. They workers said: information on arrivals. reported working between 12 and 20 hours a ‘I did not want to come here. Because her Against this background, I conducted a day, depending on the needs of the children of son [for whom they wanted me to work in the qualitative study, a series of semi-structured the families or depending on when the UK] is too… I don’t like him… his attitude. interviews of overseas domestic workers under employers needed them more generally. Almost They forced me to come here.’ the 2012 visa. This was a first step in an all the workers interviewed said that they were After arrival in the UK, the interviewees attempt to explore how this vulnerable and not allowed out of the house unaccompanied. reported that their working conditions did not difficult (for researchers) to reach group of They also explained that they worked every improve. To the contrary, some interviewees workers experience the visa in practice, to day of the week, with no day off. As these said that their living and working conditions examine if any of them are now workers are live-in domestic workers, their deteriorated. Sometimes they said that they undocumented because they escaped their home is in the employers’ household, which is stayed in less spacious accommodation (in employer, and to assess what light this also their own workplace. Some of the hotel rooms that they shared with the empirical exploration sheds on the interviewees said that they had their own employers) than in the country from where classification of the visa as one of enslavement. room, but others said that they had to share a they arrived. One of the interviewees recounted I conducted some initial interviews with 24 room with the children of the family. One that in the UK she slept in the bathroom, on the migrant live-in domestic workers. I interviewee said that she was staying in the floor, because of lack of space, which made the approached the interviewees through storage room in the employers’ house. employment relationship more tense than Kalayaan, the main UK NGO working on the Interviewees reported psychological and before coming to the UK, as she explained. rights of migrant domestic workers, from its physical abuse. Some workers recounted that Interviewees said that no pay increase took database of registered workers, and conducted the employers shouted at them and some also place while in the UK even if the employers had the interviews in the offices of the organisation reported violent behaviour, such as slapping. said to the workers or to the authorities prior with the help of interpreters, when needed. One interviewee said: ‘If I did something to arrival that they would pay the worker a The purpose of this empirical exploration was wrong with my work or if the baby kept crying higher salary while in the UK. In fact, some of to attempt to identify some common themes in and I could not handle it, they hit me’. Some those interviewed said that they were not paid the experience of the workers in relation to the interviewees reported being sexually harassed at all while in the UK. The workers interviewed living and working conditions before and after or assaulted by their employers. One of the said that their hours of work remained arrival and to try to understand what may be interviewees said that she had attempted to extremely high and that they were still not >>> ‘Overseas Domestic Workers’: Britain’s slaves Virginia Mantouvalou writes on her research talking to a group of underpaid, undervalued and mistreated workers, right here in the UK in the 21st century.
42 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp42-44_domestics_print 16/02/2015 08:13 Page 43 Picture: Jess Hurd / reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture:
Migrant domestic workers rally in Westminster on 10th December 2014 on International Human Rights Day to oppose the return of slavery in the UK, supported by Unite the union.
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 43 SL69_pp42-44_domestics_print 16/02/2015 08:13 Page 44
>>>allowed to go out unaccompanied. One because I did not know how to go to the police.’ domestic workers, but they cannot find such interviewee explained that when she was in the The interviewees said that they still did not jobs because they are undocumented. UK the employers locked her up in the flat, have their passports when they escaped. One of The workers interviewed said that their which is something that did not happen before the workers recounted that she asked her hourly or weekly pay may be in accordance arrival perhaps because there was nowhere to former employer to return her passport to her with the law (about £10 per hour), but that go, as she said. and the employer said that she had to pay sometimes the new employers, knowing of the £2,000 in order to have it. illegality, exploit them further by paying them Dependency, fear and intimidation The majority of the interviewees said that below the minimum wage (£5 or £6 per hour), According to the interviewees, while in the UK, they only learned after they escaped that they getting them to work very long hours or the employers still kept the workers’ passports, had no right to remain in the country or work dismissing them without reason and with no and sometimes threatened them that if they for a new employer. Some interviewees said compensation. Some of the workers said escape, the police will arrest, imprison and that they believed that they would have more explicitly that they know that they are being deport them. One of the workers interviewed rights in the UK. One of them said, for exploited. One interviewee said, for example: also said that she received death threats from example: ‘In Saudi Arabia I could not leave ‘Sometimes if you have an interview and the employer: them. Here I could go anywhere and disappear you tell [the prospective employers] that you ‘“I can kill you and throw you into the sea. because it is a country with more freedom’. don’t have papers, they take advantage of you It is an ocean there”. And I was scared. It was The workers interviewed said that they and they give you a small salary.’ the two of us in his flat. I was scared about know that they are now undocumented and The longer-term implications of the visas that what would happen to me. What would I seemed embarrassed by their status. However, tie domestic workers to the employer in light of really do? I didn’t know.’ they said that they are driven underground: this empirical study, then, appear to involve the The interviewees appeared to be very fearful they explained that they do not want to return creation of a workforce that lives undocumented, when discussing their employment experience to their employers because of the abuse and underground, invisible and fearful, even more with me. They expressed fear of abusive exploitation that they suffered. Most of the prone to exploitation than other domestic employers, fear of the authorities and fear of interviewees said that they do not have a case workers, or indeed the labour force as a whole. acting in any way that may be considered pending in court against the former employers. illegal. Some interviewees also expressed the They also said that they do not want to return Conclusion belief that the employers remain to their country of origin either, because they The 2012 ODW visa that ties domestic unaccountable because they are very powerful have dependents to support who are in workers to a particular employer has been or because there is no legal route to hold them desperate economic need. They spoke about criticised for leading to situations that are to account, as they have been informed when their needy children, spouses or parents in their uncomfortably close to slavery, because of the they are in the UK. Despite the abuse and country of origin. degree of control that the employer exercises exploitation reported by the interviewees, most After becoming undocumented in the UK, on the worker. It has also been argued that the of them said that they have not been or would many of these workers said that they find part- visa may violate the prohibition of slavery, not go to the police or immigration authorities. time jobs for a few hours a week. They servitude, forced and compulsory labour under Even though they said that they miss their explained that the new employers sometimes the European Convention on Human Rights. loved ones who are in their country of origin, know about their illegality, and are reluctant What this empirical study suggests is that they explained that they fear deportation to hire them full-time as live-in domestic workers are indeed objectified to a great degree because of their economic need, which led workers, so very few have full-time jobs. Some through this regime, in a manner that is them to migrate in the first place. said that they found full-time work initially incompatible with liberal values. Almost three but were subsequently dismissed because of years after its enactment, the effect of the visa Escape and being undocumented their legal status. Most of the interviewees appears to be the creation of an extremely Almost all the domestic workers interviewed therefore said that they have a couple of jobs vulnerable workforce that stays in the UK are now undocumented for periods ranging every week, with different employers undocumented and fearful, trapped in ongoing from a few months to two years, because they employing them for three to four hours a cycles of exploitation. It is to be hoped that the escaped their employers. The workers that ran week. They explained that any income that law will soon be changed and this type of visa away said that the escape was not part of a they send to their families covers basic will not be reintroduced whenever there is a plan. It was a sudden decision: material needs like electricity, nutrition and surge in anti-immigration sentiment. ‘I decided to leave them suddenly because I education. The interviewees said that they couldn’t handle living with them any more… I have to work in order to support their Virginia Mantouvalou is Reader in Human Rights left without anywhere to go and then I met dependents, and most of them said that they and Labour Law and Co-Director of the Institute someone outside. I did not go to the police, would like to have full-time jobs as live-in for Human Rights at University College London. “While in the UK, the employers still kept the workers’ passports, and sometimes threatened them that if they escape, the police will arrest, imprison and deport them. One of the workers interviewed also said that she received death threats from the employer.” 44 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp45-47_reviews_print 16/02/2015 08:14 Page 45 Reviews
More than about the closing of coal pits...
Still the Enemy Within supportive stances towards the Directed by Owen Gower miners at the time of strike. Dartmouth Films (2014) The whole duration of the strike is covered in the film which Last year marked the 30th brilliantly portrays the changing anniversary of the start of the feelings and atmosphere felt at the 1984 to 1985 miners’ strike. The time; from the elation and continuing impact of the strike optimism of the first few weeks on public consciousness is when many of the miners felt evidenced in part by the victory was assured, to the dark significant number of television days of the 1984-85 winter when programmes, documentaries, defeat appeared increasingly short films and the feature film certain due to the failure of the Pride produced last year which TUC and other major unions to covered different stories from offer meaningful support to the the strike. One such film, and in isolated miners. my opinion the most compelling In addition to the accounts of and worthy of those that I have the miners, the film is interspersed seen, is Owen Gower’s Still the with archive footage and news Enemy Within. reports from the time and is set to Still the Enemy Within tells an energetic, contemporaneous the story of the miners’ strike soundtrack of ska, punk and folk from the point of view of miners which helps to transport the themselves; those who were on viewer back in time. the front lines of the battle. This While the outcome of the strike is one of the most engaging inevitably puts a sombre tone to features of the film. Previous the closing stages, the film is programmes and films about the incredibly inspiring and uplifting. strike have tended to focus on The miners who share their stories the role of the Government and are eloquent, passionate and union leadership, often political. What comes across from portraying the strike as the each of their accounts is their machinations of Thatcher and belief that they were fighting for her cabinet pitted against Arthur something far bigger than Scargill and the upper echelons themselves and that the strike was of the NUM. Still the Enemy about more than the closing of Within instead focuses on the coal pits. They were fighting for a experiences of those who better society. Their description of actually stood on the picket a time when trade union lines: who fought battles with organisation and solidarity was the police and struggling to something tangible and real is survive in the face of particularly inspiring for those of Government attacks on welfare us who have been born later, in an with the concerted effort to For details of screenings in era of significantly less trade union starve the miners back to work. your area, go to: http://the- activism in Britain. The film has received enemy-within.org.uk/events/ The film closes with a brief significant critical acclaim, look at more recent campaigns winning the audience award at To order the DVD of Still the and demonstrations, including a the Sheffield Documentary Film Enemy Within, go to: poignant message for today’s Festival last year, and receiving http://the-enemy-within. activists: the miners’ strike was a four star reviews in major org.uk/product/pre-order- heavy defeat, but it was by no national newspapers – including, the-dvd/ means the end of the matter – ironically, The Mail on Sunday there is still more fighting to be and the Daily Express which done. both took somewhat less Michael Goold
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Reviews
‘More dangerous than nuclear weapons’?
President Obama’s want to tell humankind that we, Code Pink co-founder Medea administration ‘has killed at least like the slave Dred Scott in the Benjamin and Alice K. Ross of the as many people in targeted 19th century, are not as human as Bureau of Investigative killings as died on 9/11,’ writes you are? I cannot believe it.’ Journalism. Cohn. She quotes the US Council ‘I used to say of apartheid that Jeanne Mirer, in calling drones on Foreign Relations finding it dehumanised its perpetrators as ‘illegal at any speed’ writes: ‘The that, of the estimated 3,000 much as, if not more than, its persons targeted are not charged people killed by drones, ‘the vast victims. Your response as a with any crime, nor has any majority were neither al-Qaeda society to Osama bin Laden and evidence against them been nor Taliban leaders.’ The White his followers threatens to brought in a proper tribunal House claims ‘surgical precision’ undermine your moral standards before they are placed on the “kill for drone strikes. No need for and your humanity.’ list”.’ While playing the role of ‘boots on the ground’ - or even Cohn has enlisted 17 co- judge, jury and executioner, ‘US for pilots in the air - since their authors in this interdisciplinary leaders, in the name of fighting deadly payloads can be launched collection. They include Jeanne “terrorism”, are acting criminally, from an armchair thousands of Mirer, President of the and are subject to prosecution miles away. International Association of before the International Criminal But is it not the case that Democratic Lawyers, Professor Court.’ Not an imminent drones cause minimal ‘collateral Richard Falk (former UN Special prospect, as she readily concedes damage’? It seems not. As Rapporteur on Palestine), but it is always possible that, Drones and Targeted Killing: Professor Cohn writes: ‘the use of political activist Tom Hayden, ‘perhaps someday they will be Legal Moral and Geopolitical drones in Afghanistan has caused held to account by another Issues 10 times more civilian deaths country under the doctrine of Edited by Marjorie Cohn; foreword than manned fighter aircraft.’ universal jurisdiction.’ by Archbishop Desmond Tutu The Obama administration has Princeton’s Professor Olive Branch Press, 2015 abandoned the Bush-era Richard Falk is a veteran euphemism of ‘collateral authority on international law. Eighteen months ago, our damage’, frankly and I have to admit that the title of Haldane Society comrade Kat frighteningly calling civilian his chapter: ‘Why drones are Craig approached me on behalf casualties ‘bug splat’. more dangerous than nuclear of Reprieve to help draft a Perhaps nobody on this planet weapons,’ made me wonder communication to the speaks with greater moral for a second what he was International Criminal Court authority than Desmond Tutu. In smoking. But only for a (ICC) on the use of drone strikes a powerful foreword he second. He argues in Afghanistan. Then, the legal excoriates US hypocrisy that persuasively that the debate literature on drones was sparse. acquiesces in a killer drone about drones ‘has been Now, Marjorie Cohn’s new book program so long as foreign trivialised by being Drones and Targeted Killing: suspects are killed, but demands conducted mainly between Legal Moral and Geopolitical judicial review when those those who would cast aside Issues makes the unanswerable targets are American citizens: international law and those case that targeted killing, off the ‘Do the United States who stretch it to serve battlefield, is illegal and and its people really changing national security unjustifiable. want to tell those of us priorities of American As Professor Cohn and co- who live in the rest of foreign policy.’ contributors show, while the the world that our lives In truth, it’s a phony debate, administration of President are not of the same between people who do not care George W Bush detained and value as yours? That what happens in a world order tortured suspected terrorists, the President Obama can reduced to a ‘global battlefield’ administration of President sign off on a decision to and where the consent of foreign Obama simply assassinates them. kill us with less worry governments is coerced by US Even the CIA admits such killings about judicial scrutiny military might. He rightly says are counter-productive. Drone than if the target is an that using State terror against strikes exacerbate the very threat American? Would non-State actors ‘makes war into their apologists claim they are your Supreme a species of terror and tends
intended to eliminate. Court really reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: toward making limits on force
46 Socialist Lawyer February 2015 SL69_pp45-47_reviews_print 16/02/2015 08:14 Page 47
Reviews
seem arbitrary, if not absurd.’ how many people it believes have More dangerous than nuclear died in its operations in Yemen or Reaching the soul in ways weapons though? Well, consider Somalia.’ this: ‘so far, at any rate, Among other disturbing international law and world order features of drone warfare is the that news reports cannot have been able to figure out some ‘double-tap’. As Professor Cohn regimes of constraint for nuclear notes: ‘After the drone drops a weapons that have kept the peace, bomb on its target, a second strike by Nabila Jameel is a bare, bleak but [they] have not been able to often bombs people rescuing the snapshot of child abuse in do so for drones, and will be wounded from the first strike. Pakistan. Chained is a poem unlikely to do so as long as the And frequently, a third strike dedicated to Ruth First. logic of dirty wars is allowed to targets mourners at funerals for Embarrassed by Holly McNish control the shaping of national those felled by the prior strikes. dismantles the hypocrisy of a security policy in the United This is called a “double tap”, British culture of ‘billboards States.’ although it is more accurately a hoarded with “tits”’ which still When drafting Reprieve’s “triple tap.”’ forces women to breastfeed, communication to the ICC Though the authors here are embarrassed, in toilet cubicles. In Prosecutor, we found the research US progressives and liberals, other poems, a ‘kindly by Alice K. Ross of the Bureau of many of their conclusions are interrogator’ questions an Iranian Investigative Journalism to be shared by hawkish conservatives torture victim and an American thorough and compelling. In her like General Stanley McChrystal, health tourist decides to give the chapter on ‘Documenting Civilian the architect of US transplanted kidney he received to Casualties’, she writes that: counterinsurgency strategy in an executed Chinese prisoner. ‘Attempting to track and Afghanistan. He says drones are Pippa Little, in her poem, understand who dies in conflicts ‘hated on a visceral level’, commemorates the hunger strike matters. Where deaths go contributing to a ‘perception of of imprisoned human rights uncounted, vital information American arrogance’. Kurt lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh: ‘You about the human cost of a conflict Volker, former US ambassador to In Protest: 150 poems for spoke with your body/ in Evin is lost. Where civilian deaths and Nato admits that: ‘Drone strikes human rights prison’. injuries go unacknowledged, the … do not solve our terrorist Edited by Helle Abelvik-Lawson, The poems range from distant families of the dead are denied problem. In fact, drone use may Anthony Hett and Laila Sumpton observations – Carol Ann Duffy’s recognition of their losses, the prolong it. Even though there is School of Advanced Study, The Woman in The Moon looks prospect of compensation and the no immediate retaliation, in the University of London (2013) down on the earth and asks ‘what chance of holding anybody to long run the contributions to have you done?’ – to the account.’ radicalisation through drone use This anthology of 150 poems is unbearably close Firmament, La Failing to recognise civilian may put more American lives at the fruit of a collaboration Picota Prison, 23rd January 2013 casualties is bound to create deep- risk.’ between the Human Rights by David Ravelo, a key member of seated resentment in affected If the book primarily addresses Consortium at the University of the Barrancabermeja human populations. In the UK we do not crimes committed by the USA, the London and a collective of poets rights movement in Colombia and have to look further afield than evidence it presents is sufficient to supported by Keats House. Its aim denouncer of human rights crimes the long-denied role of security indict their co-conspirators in the is to bring human rights abuses to including disappearances and forces in murdering innocent UK. As we noted at paragraph 5 the attention of a wider audience extra-judicial executions. David civilians in Northern Ireland. This of Reprieve’s communication to through the medium of poetry and Ravelo was imprisoned in 2012 is a subject Anne Cadwallader the ICC Prosecutor: demonstrate the worth of poetry for 18 years in an unfair trial for recently documented in her ‘There is a significant body of by expressing and presenting the murder. He writes in his poem, excellent book Lethal Allies. evidence from official sources, subject matter in a way which ‘Nights, so many nights/ That I do In Pakistan, Afghanistan, non-governmental organisations inspires solidarity and activism. not see the firmament’. Yemen and Somalia, Ross and investigative journalists, The poems selected by the News reports, trial transcripts concludes that: ‘in over a decade providing a reasonable case for editors cover the broadest of and investigations are valuable of carrying out lethal drone the Prosecutor to investigate situations. The 13 chapters are and clearly useful tools in the strikes, the US administration has whether the United States and/or entitled respectively: Expression, defence of human rights. This consistently refused to provide a any of its allies are guilty of History, Land, Exile, War, anthology demonstrates what clear, detailed accounting of the crimes within the Court’s Children, Sentenced, Slavery, those words do not so easily reach human toll of its covert jurisdiction.’ Women, Regimes, Workers, – the human detail, the souls campaigns.’ I wholeheartedly commend Unequal and Protest. Even within involved in these news stories. Underestimated casualties and this book. As Archbishop Tutu these chapters the topics range Humans have valued poetry since overestimated targeting accuracy concludes in his foreword: ‘This more widely than this short ancient times, relying on it to are the hallmarks of the US book provides a much-needed summary can reflect. express feeling where prose administration’s response: ‘it has analysis of why America’s Superman’s Son by Bestin cannot help. As Sigrid Rausing released a handful of lump-sum targeted killing program is illegal, Samuel tells of the execution in says in the Afterword, poetry can estimates of casualties for immoral and unwise.’ custody of the 12-year-old son of still make us see, feel and act. Pakistan, and nothing at all about Richard Harvey an LTTE rebel leader. The Throne Elizabeth Forrester
Socialist Lawyer February 2015 47 SL69_cover_pages_print 16/02/2015 08:08 Page 2
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