SL69_cover_pages_print 16/02/2015 08:08 Page 1 SocialistLawyer Magazine of the HaldaneSociety of Socialist Lawyers I Number 69 G 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.