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First day of National Meet of Social Justice Lawyers

The first day of the National Meet of Social Justice Lawyers saw a varied array of speakers addressing young lawyers gathered from across the country. Organized by Centre for Social Justice in association with NCDHR, the panel included distinguished persons like Ms. Farah Naqvi, Member, National Advisory Council, Professor Babu Matthew from National Law University of Delhi, Ms. Vrinda Grover and Ms. Geeta Ramaseshan to name a few. The opening speech was made by Mr. Gagan Sethi, Vice Chairperson of Centre for Social Justice, who spoke about Centre for Social JusticeⳊjourney of engaging with lawyers. The Lawyers for Change Program, the first batch of which commenced in December, 2011, has been a dream of GaganⳠand is the first systematic effort of bringing young lawyers from across the country for social justice lawyering. Ms. Farah Naqvi from the National Advisory Council, who made the inaugural speech, also spoke powerfully about the need for an army of social justice lawyers both inside and outside the courtroom. Ms. Naqvi articulated the worry she faces in doing her work on changing public policy, because of the stream of new laws being passed by Parliament, but the abysmal lack of implementation of the laws that are already existing. She urged all the young lawyers in the audience to challenge the system through their lawyering, and appealed to them above all, to humanize the legal system, and dignify every victim who approaches them.༯font>

Professor Babu Matthew made the keynote address next, congratulating Mr. Gagan Sethi for creating a space for young law graduates to do this kind of work. Using the labour law sector as an example, Prof Matthew directed attention to the unique, old model of development existing in India, which was rights-based, and which was destroyed with the advent of neo-libralism. According to him, in order to advance in the field of social justice lawyering, we will have to return to the old model of development. He ended by emphasizing the importance of a community such as Lawyers for Change in this journey.༯span>

Mr. Tridip Pais, an advocate from New Delhi, spoke on the topic of 㓥nsitive Lawyering Integrating response to human rights within mainstream practice䮠Mr. Pais began by explaining how he devoted 75% of his time to mainstream cases and 25% to what he broadly categorized as 㦲ee cases䮠The latter falls within the ambit of social action litigation. He talked of the need for every independent legal practitioner to balance paid-for and free cases, since one needs to earn a livelihood too, and can in this way exercise a choice of which cases to pick, not governed by any mandate. In his opinion, a lawyer has a responsibility, in his free cases, to represent clients who donⴠhave the option of another lawyer. Also, handling all kinds of matters helps a lawyer gain a mainstream experience and maintain a level of professionalism, even in his free cases.༯span>

Maneka Guruswamy, a young advocate who practises in the Supreme Court and followed Mr. Pais, echoed the importance of having a mixed practice. In her opinion, it enabled lawyers to have access to a decent standard of living as well as do interesting work and simultaneously make a difference. Maneka expressed the importance of bringing craft and quality lawyering to the courtroom, as well as maintaining a level of professional detachment. She works mainly in the area of constitutional law and referred to three important cases from 2011, including the Naz Foundation and the RTE judgment. She also voiced her concern about the extraordinary gap between the world of legal scholarship reading, writing and critical thinking and actual legal practice, and the need to bridge the same.༯span>

Post-lunch, the session was taken by Ms. Geeta Ramaseshan, Senior Lawyer, Madras High Court on ㅸperiences from the Civil Liberty Movement.䠍s. Ramaseshan, who completes 30 years at the bar next month, talked about her experiences within the Legal Aid Movement in Tamil Nadu in the 1980s. She narrated a very inspiring story from her junior lawyer days, about reading a newspaper advertisement by Sikhs appealing for help in Coimbatore, in the aftermath of the 1984 Sikh riots and then making a trip to visit them. This resulted in a Public Interest Litigation, one of the first in India on state inaction, and from this further developed the jurisprudence of culpable inaction in India. She also spoke about the different kinds of strategies they would use on behalf of victims of oppression in order to get them justice. Coming to Public Interest Litigations, with reference to abuse of power, Ms. Ramaseshan stated how she found them to be very risky. This is because with the dismissal of the case, the court washes its hands off it, making the political process around it much more challenging. So PILs are a tool to be used very cautiously and as a last resort, in her opinion. She mentioned, also, her misgivings about the use of media for litigation. She ended by asking the young lawyers present to rise to the occasion and practice social justice lawyering as well as regular lawyering, and build a constant repository of knowledge in the process.༯span>

The penultimate speaker of the day was Ms. Vrinda Grover, a Human Rights Advocate from New Delhi. Ms. Grover talked about the inextricable linkage of law with politics, and her experiences regarding communal violence and Kashmir. She also stressed on the need for every lawyer to work bottom-up, from the lower-most courts as those were the actual arenas of human rights work. However, lawyering in her opinion needs to be done both within the courtroom and outside it, and research and writing are as important an aspect of human rights lawyering as practice. Moving on to ethics, Ms. Grover expressed her problem with the second-rate lawyering done in free cases of public interest, and the express accountability of lawyers to each and every client they represent. For her, the challenge lies in not letting the system exhaust you, and she ended by revealing that the source of her grit and determination did not stem from within but from the people tirelessly fighting their cases for years, who believe that the actual win is the fight itself and not a favourable judgment.༯span>

The last session was on Dalit Rights and was taken by Mr. Prasad Sirivella and Mr. Paul Divakar from NCDHR. Mr. Sirivella presented a statistical analysis of atrocities taking place on Dalits across the country, and how they are affected not only by non-implemention of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act but also by other social welfare legislations. Mr. Divakar, apart from caste-based violence, spoke about gender-based violence and drew parallels between the two. He concluded by speaking about the transformation taking place within the legal system, and the hope for better legislations and implementation in the future.

Please find attached the event schedule.

For queries regarding coverage, please contact Ms. Azima on 099099 63357
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Satyajeet Mazumdar
Centre for Social Justice

Mobile: (+91) 99099 63150


More information on the event available here.

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