POLITICS/PAKISTAN: Useful lawyers ...

Lawyers are often considered sources of division, as leeches who suck not just blood but even marrow from their communities and their local economies. Lawyers are also seen as futue politicians, yet often another source of division.

But in recent days, Pakistanis are seeing a different side to their legal profession. Lawyers, all suited and booted, are seen marching in the streets, being arrested and even beaten. Their protest concerns the restoration of judges and the rule of law. They want to see democratically elected governments being held accountable. And Pakistanis across rthe nation (and even diaspora cross the world) could keep up with it all on Twitter. Years ago, they were protesting on the same issues during the rule of military dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

All this really came home to me when I recently saw a snippet from a talkback TV show on Pakistan's Aaj TV. One housewife called in to made this observation, which I will translate from Urdu:

It was the lawyers who united our country where once we were so splintered that people with opposing political views wouldn’t even talk to each other.

My paternal grandfather was a criminal lawyer practising in Lahore, who died at a relatively young age of a heart attack whilst cross examining a witness in a murder trial. My father, who avoided a career in legal practice like the plague, was never much keen on seeing me practise law. I've met some pretty nasty lawyers during my 15-odd years practising in Sydney.

But lawyers can (and so often do) make a huge difference behind the scenes holding authorities to account. And lawyers everywhere can feel proud of what their colleagues across Pakistan have achieved. Whether it all makes the difference remains to be seen ...



Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Rudd and the return of multiculturalism ...

John Howard never liked the "m" word. But Kevin Rudd has brought it back, reinstating the Australian Multicultural Advisory Council that Howard abolished. At one time, many of us associated multiculturalism with a government-funded industry filled with "ethnic" leaders busily stacking their organisations so that they could employ their otherwise-unemployable nephews and/or stack ALP (or in my case, Liberal) branches for pre-selection purposes.

And after reading the story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, you might be tempted to believe that the usual suspects will form part of this council.

Suspects like the kind of largely irrelevant self-appointed leaders of Muslim religious organisations, most of whom were middle aged first generation migrant men who push women away from mosques and who even validate domestic violence. Howard had little hesitation in placing these men on his Muslim Community Reference Group because they had little ability to engage with media and politicians.

Some of them enjoyed making embarrassing public statements, and their removal from the public stage has provided plenty of relief to a beleaguered faith sector to often held collectively responsible for events overseas they have little control over. Imagine if all Queenslanders were held responsible for Attorney-General Kevin Shine’s insensitive remarks on rape victims.

Rudd’s choice of nominees for his Multicultural Advisory Council reflects a good mix of academia, sport, professional experience and grassroots activism. The only Muslim religious community representative, Joumanah El Matrah, belongs to an organisation that works tirelessly at a grassroots level with women from emerging communities such as Afghans, Iraqis and Africans. Generally media-shy, El Matrah is one of Australian Islam’s unsung heroines.

The interests of indigenous communities are too often ignored in discussions about multiculturalism.

Rudd’s committee includes Rhonda Jacobsen, an accomplished indigenous lawyer who has written extensively on the legal aspects of reconciliation. Without exception, these appointees represent the best and brightest of Australian pluralism.

Hopefully they will advise the Rudd government in such a manner that minorities won’t be marginalised or turned into political wedges in a manner so common during the 11 years of Howard’s monocultural madness.

First published in Crikey on 18 December 2008.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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VIDEO: The Law on Terror ...

What happens when lawyers, as part of their professional "duties", manufacture the legal mechanisms allowing governments to commit acts of terror, mass-murder and genocide? Perhaps the judgment on a group of German government lawyers may provide some clues.



Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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VIDEO: Lawyers In Love?

Check out this rather colourful discussion between Greg Barnes, Rob Stary and Peter Faris QC about the rehabilitation of child sex offenders. Thanks to Crikey.

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HUMOUR: Ancestral lawyering ...

Believe it or not, my ancestors were Mongols. In fact, they were a fairly nasty crowd who conquered central Asia but couldn't quite conquer India until they inter-married with Turks and Persians. By that time, they had become bastardised into another race known as "Mughals".

Anyway, we Mughals have law in the blood. My grand father was a criminal barrister in Delhi. But I now learn a movie is being made about one of my earlier ancestors and his exploits in and out of the courtroom.

Check him out below.



I'm just glad he never took up teaching!




(Thanks to AK)

Words © Irfan Yusuf 2008

COMMENT: Damnit Janet! haven't you heard of the common law?

It’s official. When it comes to law, Janet Albrechtsen is no conservative. Here’s why.

Albrechtsen’s spray on the ALP and ‘activist’ judges the other day is evidence (if ever any was needed) that she simply doesn’t believe in the English common law tradition. She writes:

The Howard Government has stacked the High Court with stodgy conservative judges. You know the type. Judges who have that old-fashioned view about democracy under which politicians and the people make the laws and judges implement them.

She summarises the impact of judge-made law as follows:

There is little predictability or certainty. The rule of law becomes no obstacle for significant social change.

Albrechtsen must have skipped her undergraduate law lecture where the concept of common law as judge-made law was explained. Then again, given the key role the common law plays in Australian law, it seems Albrechtsen may have skipped attending lectures altogether.

I guess Albrechtsen must be opposed to the various Sale of Goods Act legislated in the various Australian states and territories as well as at Commonwealth level. Those acts involved codification of basic commercial law developed by English judges over centuries. As far back as 1988, the NSW Law Reform Commission noted that noted that the preamble to these Acts mention their intention “to codify ... the law relating to the sale of goods". You’d think someone with a PhD in commercial law would know that.

Albrechtsen must also be opposed to basic common law concepts such as negligence, the result of nasty left-wing Che Guevara-worshipping House of Lords judges like Lord Atkin in the 1932 English decision of Donoghue –v- Stevenson. I mean, look what happens when activist judges give judicial expression to the “Good Samaritan” propaganda of that radical communist Jesus Christ, as reported in Chapter 10 of the revolutionary extremist manual known as The Gospel According to Luke.

Albrechtsen goes further, rallying against

... progressive judges who have staked out their preference for ambiguous human rights and international law.

She resents the appointment of judges committed to nasty trendy left-wing types of causes. You know. Communist socialist anarchist leftist PC-ist causes like human rights.

The horror! Judges standing up for human rights? And judges making law as they have been for over 1,000 years?? We’d better start donning “Howard-07” t-shirts as

Labor may end up appointing judges who have nothing but disdain for politicians and parliament and, yes, the people.

True conservatives support the status quo, and insist on only gradual change. By almost wanting to do away with the traditional role of the common law, Albrechtsen has shown why (at least in legal matters) she is a radical revolutionary.