SL65_coverpages_print 14/10/2013 09:23 Page 1 SocialistLawyer Magazine of theHaldaneSociety of Socialist Lawyers I Number 65 G October 2013 £3 Justice in the balance Legal Aid: the fight goes on Brazil: crisis and uprising Kenya: a new constitution The right to protest SL65_pp2-3_contents&editorial_print 14/10/2013 09:24 Page 2 Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers PO Box 64195, London WC1A 9FD www.haldane.org The Haldane Society was founded in 1930. It provides a forum for the discussion and analysis of law and the legal reportdigital.co.uk / Hurd Jess Picture: system, both nationally and internationally, from a socialist perspective. It holds frequent public meetings and conducts educational programmes.The Haldane Society is independent of any political party. Membership comprises lawyers, academics, students and legal workers as well as trade union and labour movement affiliates. The list of the current executive, elected at the AGM in November 2012 is as follows: President: Michael Mansfield QC Vice Presidents: Geoffrey Bindman QC, Louise Christian, Tess Gill, Tony Gifford QC, John Hendy QC, News & comment Legal Aid protests; Reborn in the Helena Kennedy QC, Imran Khan, 4 USA; Young Legal Aid lawyers and On The Picket Line Catrin Lewis, Kate Markus, Gareth Peirce, columns; Stop and search; Vadim Kuramshim; Social Michael Seifert, David Turner-Samuels, Estella Schmidt, Phil Shiner, Jeremy Smith security benefits and ELDH news and events and Frances Webber Who is that man in the Lord Chancellor’s seat? Chair: Liz Davies ([email protected]) Clare Sambrook points a finger at Chris Grayling, the Tory Vice-Chairs: Kat Craig and Anna Morris 12 ([email protected]) minister enjoying his job of destroying legal aid Secretary (job-share): New threat to the right to protest Stephen Knight on Russell Fraser & Michael Goold the new arrest tactic to include legal observers and Michael ([email protected]) 14 Socialist Lawyer editor: Tim Potter Goold and Emily Elliott on an important victory in the High ([email protected]) Court against the Met police and its kettling actions Treasurer: Declan Owens Eddie Gilfoyle: miscarriage of justice ([email protected]) Jacob Bindman Membership Secretary: 18 on the tragic suicide which inexplicably became a murder Debbie Smith Kenya: a new constitution Willy Mutunga on the ([email protected]) culmination of almost five decades of struggles International Secretary: Bill Bowring 20 ([email protected]) The poetry of Talha Ahsan who is currently in pre-trial Executive Committee: solitary confinement in a supermax prison since his Kani Areef, Martha Jean Baker, Alex 24 Chandran, Natalie Csengeri, Rheian Davies, extradition to the USA with co-defendant Babar Ahmad Emily Elliott, Elizabeth Forrester, Thomas Ballots or banners? Film maker Pablo Navarrete looks at Gillie, Margaret Gordon, Agnieszka how student protests in Chile have a political dimension Grabianka-Hindley, Owen Greenhall, 26 Rebecca Harvey, Richard Harvey, Paul Extortion, torture, death: price of migration to US Heron, John Hobson, Sophie Khan, Angus Fiona McPhail reports from the preliminary hearing of the King, Stephen Knight, Siobhan Lloyd, 28 Natasha Lloyd-Owen, Chris Loxton, Carlos international Permanent People’s Tribunal in Mexico City Orjuela, Sam Parham, Wendy Pettifer, It started with a bus fare increase... Rio-based Ripon Ray, David Renton, Brian Richardson, Hannah Rought-Brooks, Marina Sergides 30 Damian Platt analyses Brazil’s 2013 mass demonstrations and Adiam Weldensae What lies behind the ‘urban crisis’? Joviano Mayer 34 and William Azalim look at the roots of the anger in Brazil SocialistLawyer Agreement of the people Paul Feldman on the Editor: Tim Potter campaign for a British constitution Special thanks to: Liz Davies, Russell Fraser, 38 Declan Owens, Mike Goold and Rights or wrongs? Bill Bowring replies to David Renton’s Brian Richardson 40 ‘Do socialists still have an alternative concept of rights?’ Cover picture: Jess Hurd Self determination (www.jesshurd.com) Steven Walker looks at what Design: Smith+Bell 43 influenced young Cuban lawyer Fidel Castro (www.smithplusbell.com) Reviews Undercover; A Very British Killing: The Print: The Russell Press Books: (www.russellpress.com) 44 Death of Baha Mousa; Thompsons; The Innocent & the ISSN 09 54 3635 Criminal Justice System and the film Neighbouring Sounds 2 Socialist Lawyer October 2013 SL65_pp2-3_contents&editorial_print 14/10/2013 09:24 Page 3 from the chair Three and a half years into the coalition Government unprecedented in the UK although not elsewhere: Austerity, and austerity is well and truly with us. Nor for Pakistani lawyers brought their country to a standstill legal aid, everyone: the incomes of the 1,000 wealthiest people when they went on strike after the Chief Justice had in the UK are growing. But in the real world, those been suspended by General Musharraf. We are all and fighting living off benefits have to find money from what is anxious about our clients: if we do not turn up, will back supposed to be basic subsistence money to pay she be unjustly sent to prison? Or landed with a towards council tax, bedroom tax, and ever increasing judgment? Lose her children? Be evicted? Will I fuel and food bills. Everyday in my practice as a receive a wasted costs order? If we all stand together housing lawyer I see people threatened with eviction on a one-day boycott, Judges just won’t be able to for not being able to find £25 a week – from non- punish either our clients or ourselves. Collective housing related benefits – for the bedroom tax; the action and solidarity is the key. If we don’t take action benefit cap resulting in 42 per cent of income going on now to save legal aid, when will we? rent; and fewer and fewer people able to obtain legal It is poignant that Tooks Chambers, set up by our advice since the LASPO cuts arrived in April 2013. President Mike Mansfield QC during the 1984 – The Government’s latest attack on legal aid is part 1985 miners’ strike, is a prominent casualty of legal of its assault on the welfare state. Its philosophy is that aid cuts. It is important to note that Tooks’ dissolution public services should only be available for the most is the result of the cuts to legal aid that have already desperate and delivered at rock-bottom cost and been implemented: years of attrition, a 10 per cent cut therefore rock-bottom quality. In health, education in civil legal aid payments in October 2011, low rates and criminal defence, the Government wants two-tier of pay for junior criminal barristers, the LASPO cuts structures: the publicly-funded part of the structure to social welfare law. If the Transforming Legal Aid should be so run-down that anyone who can afford it cuts go through, it is impossible to envisage the buys privately. That has already happened to social survival of specialist, expert legal aid practitioners in housing: 30 years of under funding has turned what any firm or chambers. We are sad to see Tooks’ used to be a universal scheme into an emergency safety demise. We salute the chambers – staff and barristers – net for the most desperate. for its record of fighting miscarriages of justice, An irony is that rich countries could do with a bit of holding the State to account through inquests, austerity. We consume too much fuel, eat too much inquiries and judicial reviews, and for its commitment meat, trade in luxuries and waste far too much. We have to delivering legal services to those who cannot afford a duty to the planet and to poorer countries to change to pay for them. our lifestyles, particularly our fuel consumption, but not This issue of Socialist Lawyer shows just how busy by flat price rises which merely give the rich licence to our membership and executive are, not just trying to consume even more. We need a Government that save legal aid and doing the day job of representing prioritises public transport, cuts down on flying, and clients, but also standing in solidarity against human ensures that everyone can afford to heat their homes, rights abuses in the Philippines, Mexico, pay their housing costs and put enough food on the Guantánamo Bay, Chile and elsewhere. Two longer table. A bit of austerity on the rich – along with articles show us that socialist lawyers are thinkers as redistribution – would help the planet no end. well as activists: Bill Bowring responds to David People, even lawyers, are fighting back. Renton’s previous article on socialism and legal rights Firefighters, teachers, university lectures are on strike. and we are honoured that the Chief Justice of Kenya, A Day of Action against Austerity is planned for 5th Dr Willy Mutunga, has given us permission to November 2013. There is real anger among criminal reproduce his speech on building an anti-colonial defence lawyers and an appetite for direct action. The jurisprudence. Law Society has been roundly condemned for its We hold our Annual General Meeting on 14th Thatcherite plea of ‘there is no alternative’ to cuts to November 2013 with Vice-President Phil Shiner criminal legal aid. Calls for direct action have come speaking on ‘UK human rights violations in Iraq and from the Criminal Bar Association, the London Afghanistan – the present picture’ (see back page). Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association and other Come along and consider getting more involved: professional bodies not known for their radicalism. motions and nominations for the executive should be Haldane Chair Liz Davies The next step in the campaign to save legal aid sent to [email protected] no later than 5pm speaking at the People’s should be a one-day withdrawal of labour and Monday 11th November 2013.