FREEDOM RIDERS TRY TO END ISRAELI APARTHEID
History is right now being made in Palestine. A small number (5) of brave Palestinians have boarded a public bus from which they are barred in Israel.
Avaaz reports: "Lacking their own state, Palestinians are forbidden to use buses and roads reserved for non-Arabs - part of a host of race-based rules that US President Jimmy Carter has called "apartheid"." 50 years ago, blacks in the US challenged these rules by simply and non-violently refusing to follow them."
The Palestinians have just now taken the same approach, and their actions are seen livE at the link below (see comment 1)
As Gandhi did in India and Rose Parks did in the US, these non-violent freedom riders are simply on the bus, quietly making their powerful point to the world.
At last viewing one protestor had ben forcibly removed, the bus had stopped, a soldier and settler got off. The Israeli passengers are having to put up with the delay that Palestinians suffer daily. Soldiers are shouting and bullying people telling them to get off.
They are being forcibly removed
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Monday, 7 November 2011
(Unpublished) Letter to Times, Independent and Examiner
ALAN SHATTER on JUDGES
Putting aside the question as to the veracity of the Moriarty report in its every detail and eschewing entirely the controversy it has engendered, I refer to the statement of Minister for Justice Alan Shatter (http://www.justice.ie/) and the more generalised remarks he makes about the criticism of judges.
The Minister said that "Our judiciary play a crucial role in upholding the constitutional rights of individuals, rich or poor, without fear of or favour to any one individual or the State itself."
As a human rights activist, attending court over the past eight years, my experience has been entirely different. Put the State in court against any litigant and it will require all the might of the legal profession to defeat the State - even when the law of the land is patently against the State's position.
So, in the case of the State versus Clancy and Others (2006), three separate judges attempted to prevent the lawful defence of the five defendants being admitted for the consideration of the jury. Two of these judges had to resign from the case and the third had to re-consider, under powerful pressure from three Barristers, and eventually allow the lawful defence. The jury unanimously acquitted all five defendants.
Put the State against a lay litigant in a similar scenario.. There are now no powerful Barristers around, no independent press, and ninety nine times out of a hundred, the judiciary will not "uphold the constitutional rights of the individual without fear or favour to the State". The situation is even more draconian when a lay litigant takes a case against a judge or vice versa.
The "public confidence in our judiciary and in our courts", that Mr Shatter refers to, must be earned. If that confidence is ever restored, if ever we see a full and open transparency about the workings of the courts, the judiciary and the Courts Service, if a Judicial Council, independent of judges, is ever allowed to come into being in order to monitor judges' activities within their courts, or if arrogance on the bench is replaced with a modicum of humility, it will truly mark a new beginning.
Otherwise, Minister Shatter's vision of the Irish judiciary will remain a pleasant fantasy.
Is Mise
Putting aside the question as to the veracity of the Moriarty report in its every detail and eschewing entirely the controversy it has engendered, I refer to the statement of Minister for Justice Alan Shatter (http://www.justice.ie/) and the more generalised remarks he makes about the criticism of judges.
The Minister said that "Our judiciary play a crucial role in upholding the constitutional rights of individuals, rich or poor, without fear of or favour to any one individual or the State itself."
As a human rights activist, attending court over the past eight years, my experience has been entirely different. Put the State in court against any litigant and it will require all the might of the legal profession to defeat the State - even when the law of the land is patently against the State's position.
So, in the case of the State versus Clancy and Others (2006), three separate judges attempted to prevent the lawful defence of the five defendants being admitted for the consideration of the jury. Two of these judges had to resign from the case and the third had to re-consider, under powerful pressure from three Barristers, and eventually allow the lawful defence. The jury unanimously acquitted all five defendants.
Put the State against a lay litigant in a similar scenario.. There are now no powerful Barristers around, no independent press, and ninety nine times out of a hundred, the judiciary will not "uphold the constitutional rights of the individual without fear or favour to the State". The situation is even more draconian when a lay litigant takes a case against a judge or vice versa.
The "public confidence in our judiciary and in our courts", that Mr Shatter refers to, must be earned. If that confidence is ever restored, if ever we see a full and open transparency about the workings of the courts, the judiciary and the Courts Service, if a Judicial Council, independent of judges, is ever allowed to come into being in order to monitor judges' activities within their courts, or if arrogance on the bench is replaced with a modicum of humility, it will truly mark a new beginning.
Otherwise, Minister Shatter's vision of the Irish judiciary will remain a pleasant fantasy.
Is Mise
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