Download Which role do democratic and progressive lawyers have? Dear

Which role do democratic and progressive lawyers have?
Dear colleagues,
1.
We are here together on a members Congress of the International Association of Democratic
Lawyers.
Most of you know better than me the roots of this Association in the Second World War and
her experiences in several democratic and emancipatory movements throughout the world the
last sixty years. Nevertheless, the goal of this paper and my intervention in this commission is
to discuss the role of democratic and progressive lawyers in our society.
Preparing the IADL Congress with Progress Lawyers Network, the Belgian affiliate to IADL,
from which I am the youngest and thus the least experienced lawyer, discussions rose about
the precise role of democratic lawyers, the differences with corporate lawyers and the socalled ‘neutral’ lawyers and about the role of an International Association of Democratic
Lawyers.
During the campaigning for the IADL Congress at several universities and tribunals, having
discussions with colleague-lawyers and students, it also became more clear to the younger
generation of Progress Lawyers Network that our aim is defending and improving
fundamental rights – political as well as social and economic rights – and the respect for
international law and world peace and development.
When Progress Lawyers Network got the confidence of the IADL bureau to organise this 18 th
Congress, we were convinced that a discussion about the role of democratic lawyers is
necessary on a congress of a worldwide association of such democratic lawyers. Not only to
continue the already started discussion and to convince new or young lawyers of their
possible role, but also because discussing is the only way to sharpen the knives – in a
figurative sense of course – in order to learn from each others experiences and knowledge to
improve our continuous struggle.
That is the reason why me, the youngest of Progress Lawyers Network, with just a year of
experience in lawyering for a democratic, social and healthy society, who never before
participated in an IADL Congress or even encountered IADL members, commence this
1
discussion. The reason is thus to oblige myself to learn from the experiences of the past and to
commence a discussion to learn from each other.
Above all, I hope it is clear that I do not carry the idea to bring any new information that will
enlighten you of which role you have to play as a democratic lawyer. No, I just want to
initiate a discussion that potentially will remember the more experienced members of IADL
and other democratic and progressive lawyers to share their knowledge and motivation to do
what they did in the past and will continue in the future: defending democratic, emancipatory
and social movements and contributing to the struggle of those movements, unions, parties
and activists with all the legal skills at their disposal.
Last but not least I want to refer to pioneer human rights lawyer Romeo Capulong of the
Philippines who was one of the first stressing out that lawyers need to transform their
profession from being a protector of the status quo and for this reason perpetuator of injustice,
into a relevant player for social consciousness and action and an agent of fundamental change
for the greater majority. His Selected Speeches on People’s Lawyering in the Philippine
Context still is a great enlightenment for democratic and progressive people’s lawyers.
2.
On the nature of law and the struggle for progressive changes.
Before we can handle the precise role is of a democratic progressive lawyer, I reckon it
necessary to make clear what the nature is of law. Law as we know it now as written system
of sanctionable rules did not always exist in history. Rules of law and their sanctions did
originate together with private property, which was necessary step for the agricultural
revolution. It was because of the possibility of a food surplus that trade could emerge first
between several groups of people and later within the group of people themselves. In this
way, social inequality originated.
As social relations became more and more complex and inequality in society rose,
sanctionable rules of law became necessary instead of non-sanctionable rules of conduct or
rules of behaviour. The discovery of writing made the modern codifications and law possible.
I want to stress out that rules of law are a product of our society. Rules of law are the legal
formulation of the relations between people who need to work together to produce the
necessary goods in order to survive. This perspective is necessary to understand that law in an
unequal society will always be unequal. Essentially law is an element to protect the interests
of the existing order.
But it is also clear that law is also an interesting element in the struggle for emancipatory and
democracy for those who are suppressed. Progressive elements in law, such as social and
unions rights, and political rights as freedom of speech and the right to choose your own
government are the result of struggle in the past. For example, in a couple of weeks on the
first of May we internationally celebrate Labour Day of May Day, which remembers us the
international struggle for the 8-hour workday.
2
3.
As Jan Fermon made clear in his opening speech in the plenum of this Congress: “Lawyers
do not change the world”. As democratic lawyers, we need to be aware of the fact that
progressive changes are the work of the people, organised in social movements, trade unions,
liberation movements, progressive political organisations, anti-war organisations, movements
against global warming and for a healthy society, women’s rights movements and for last
example peasant’s movements.
It is the task for lawyers not just to participate like any other activists in the campaigns and
the movements, but to use the political and legal skills, achieved by social struggle in the past.
Lawyers need to use these legal skills to help social movements to develop and go forward.
Sometimes the law must be used to defend these movements against attempts to criminalise
them. On other occasions progressive lawyers will be able to help those movements to use the
law offensively to carry forward their objectives. It is possible sometimes for democratic
lawyers to help social movements to translate their struggles in proposals for new legislation,
so that their achievements can be used in the future and are legally protected. It is this
interaction – law is both an element of suppression as an element of liberation – that makes
law such an attractive and useful weapon to carry forward the struggle of democratic and
social movements.
4.
It is of course alarming to constitute that the economical crisis implies a deterioration of
political rights of citizens. At the one hand union rights, freedom of speech and freedom of
organisation are under pressure and at the other hand trade unions, peace organisations and
environmental organisations are criminalised, intimidated and spied-on like they are terrorists.
I refer to activists of Greenpeace, but also to members of trade unions and movements such as
Field Liberation Movement against the use of genetic modified organisms in the EU and
‘Plasactie vzw’ an organisation fighting for more public toilets for both men and women.
I want to stress out that being an activist fighting for a healthy and clean society or for the
liberty and independence of peasants form big business seed companies or being a trade union
member is of course not a crime. That those people are treated in that way is the very
alarming symptom of a failing legal system of a society in economical crisis.
Social problems such as the illegal dumping of household waste because buying garbage bags
is too expensive or urinating in the public because there is not public sanitary are converted to
individual problems and are sanctioned. It is eventually cheaper in times of crisis to sanction
individual problems than to finance garbage collection without profit and public toilets for
men and women. Of course organisations such as ‘Plasactie vzw’ (translated as ‘Piss action
non-profit organisation’) who campaign for public sanitary need to be criminalised because
they are a thorn in the flesh.
For the reason that the organisation of a legal system with respect for fundamental rights such
as the right of defence, the right of an independent judge and in accordance with the principle
of separation of powers is too expensive in times of crisis, we notice as well in Belgium as
abroad an alternative legal system. A system of administrative sanctions imposed by executive
powers instead of judges for all kind of public disturbance, such as urinating in the public,
3
illegal dumping of household but also playing children making to much noise, throwing a
snowball at each other and even public protest or distributing leaflets in the public.
5.
I already mentioned that law is a product of social changes and that in times of crisis
fundamental rights are deteriorated. This became clear in the latest evolutions regarding the
EU-directive on the retention of digital data. During all the commotion and astonishment
caused by the leaks of Edward Snowden about the NSA espionage scandal, the European
commission wanted to install a far-going system of mass data retention of their citizens.
Luckily, the European Court of Justice judged last week that this EU-directive on data
retention is an infringement of the fundamental right of privacy and needs therefore to be
destroyed. This is a positive example of how law can be used to protect fundamental right and
how social changes are able to influence law and jurisprudence.
6.
Finally, Progress Lawyers Network chooses clearly the side of the working class people and
progressive movements, in the same way the majority of lawyers, especially corporate
lawyers chose the side of big companies and banks. Progress Lawyers Network can’t stress
out enough that chosing a neutral side in law is not an option because we live in an unequal
society and accepting inequality as the reality is already choosing a side.
Democratic and progressive lawyers need to choose to support the struggle for more and
better-protected fundamental rights, to fight against all attacks on these fundamental rights
and other social and cultural achievements, and to support the broader struggle for a
democratic, healthy and social development with respect for international law.
4