Speaking Notes – Which role do democratic and progressive lawyers have?
Simon Van Damme of PROGRESS Lawyers Network
Dear colleagues,
1.
As we all know 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 my paper and my intervention in this commission is to discuss
the role of democratic and progressive lawyers in our society.
2.
First of all, I want to make 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.
3.
I want to initiate this discussion not only to know where our association stands for; not
only to convince other and younger lawyers of a career as a kind rare type of lawyer, the
so-called democratic lawyer or people’s lawyer by Romeo Capulong; but also because
discussing is the only way to sharpen our knives – in a figurative sense of course – in
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order to learn from other experiences and knowledge to improve our continuous
struggle to the last step which Kumi Naidoo called ‘winning’.
4.
So the question is: “In what aspects are democratic lawyers different from other lawyers,
who are seen as ‘neutral’ lawyers?”
During the preparation and campaign for the IADL Congress at several universities and
tribunals, having discussions with colleague-lawyers and students, it became clear to me
that the aim of democratic lawyers is defending and improving fundamental rights –
political as well as social and economic rights.
But … does not almost every lawyer say that he is defending fundamental rights? And is
not almost every lawyer against ‘injustice’?
5.
Well, here it is necessary to refer to one of the pioneer human rights lawyers, Romeo
Capulong. He was the founder of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) in the
Philippines and was one of the first making clear that lawyers need to transform their
profession from being a protector of the status quo into a relevant player for social
consciousness and action.
6.
Democratic lawyers know that law is – in the last instance – a sophisticated mechanism
to defend the existing system and the interests of the 1%.
Law is not neutral, nor inherent to human kind or justified by gods.
Law is a product of society, a legal formulation of the relations between people who
work and live together.
For this reason democratic lawyers know that the clients’ poverty and the injustice
committed against them is the result from the society, and that for this reason the
society, our social-economical system needs to be changed and that lawyers have an
active role as agents of fundamental change for the greater majority
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7.
Some fundamental changes such as democratic and fundamental right were enforced by
the harsh struggle of workers, trade unions and social movements.
Democratic and progressive lawyers have to use those enforced rights such as the
freedom of association, freedom of speech, trade union rights, the social security and
political rights.
Democratic lawyers have to remember that those progressive elements in law were
enforced by struggle and that without struggle those rights will disappear soon enough.
Therefor I shortly want to remember the celebration of Labour Day or May Day.
We celebrate on the first of May internationally the struggle and the dead for the 8-hour
workday, today for many workers still or not longer a fundamental right. I refer to the
topics in the third commission yesterday on temporary work, zero-hours contracts in
the UK, mini-jobs and the precarious work all over the world.
8.
I want to remember the words said at the plenum of this congress: “Lawyers do not
change the world”.
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 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 these
campaigns and the movements, but most important to use all the political and legal
skills at their disposal cause achieved by social struggle in the past.
Lawyers need to use their legal skills to help social movements to develop and go
forward. Sometimes to defend movements against attempts to criminalise them.
At other moments to help movements to use the law offensively and to carry forward
their objectives. Democratic lawyers are able to help social movements to translate their
struggles in proposals for new legislation, so that their achievements can be used in the
future and shall be legally protected.
Most of you are lawyers, so actually I don’t really need to tell but it is also this
interaction – law as an element of suppression and an element of liberation – that makes
law such an attractive and useful weapon to carry forward the struggle of democratic
and social movements.
9.
Because law is a product of society, also the economical crisis influences law.
It is alarming to constitute that the economical crisis implies a deterioration of most
political rights of citizens. Union rights and freedom of organisation are under severe
pressure and at the same time trade unions, peace organisations, migrants and
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environmental organisations are criminalised, intimidated and spied-on. I think of the
criminalisation of activists of Greenpeace and more local in Belgium of Field Liberation
Movement (against the use of genetic modified organisms) and ‘Plasactie vzw’, an
organisation fighting for more public toilets for both men and women.
The fact that activists are treated like criminals or terrorists is a symptom from our
failing legal system and from a society in economical crisis.
10.
It is a clear evolution that 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 that way.
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.
11.
Another symptom of our failing legal system is the alternative system of administrative
sanctions, such as we know in Belgium and the UK.
Cause 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 principles of separation of
powers is too expensive, especially in times of crisis, administrative sanctions are
imposed by executive powers instead of judges for all kind of public disturbance.
Public disturbance is urinating in public, 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 (where are our freedom of speech and
freedom of association?).
12.
I already mentioned that law is a product of social relations and changes, and that in
times of crisis fundamental rights are deteriorated. This also 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.
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13.
The only thing left I want to make clear is that I am pleased that 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 choosing a neutral side in law is
not an option because we live in an unequal society and accepting inequality as the
reality is 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.
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