Gareth Peirce and Helena Kennedy
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The Law and Human Rights |
Lawyer Gareth Peirce represents individuals subject to rendition and torture, held in prisons in the UK on the basis of secret evidence, and interned in secret prisons abroad under regimes that continue to practice torture. Clients include the Birmingham Six, Judith Ward, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, and Moazzam Begg. In Dispatches From the Dark Side: On Torture and the Death of Justice, she looks at the British government’s involvement in torture which, if not accounted for, will destroy much of the moral and legal fabric it claims to be protecting. She discusses her work with Helena Kennedy QC, who has spent her professional life giving voice to those who have least power within the system, championing civil liberties and promoting human rights.
Gareth Peirce is an acclaimed human rights lawyer who, in a remarkable legal career of over 30 years, has appeared for the Birmingham Six, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes and Moazzam Begg, amongst many others. For more than 20 years, Peirce represented many wrongly accused Irish men and women, who had stood trial in England, with over 20 successful appeals. The most famous case was that of the Guildford Four, who were convicted of an IRA bomb attack in 1974 and freed by the Court of Appeal after serving 14 years in prison. The story was made into a controversial film, In The Name Of The Father, with Peirce’s role played by Emma Thompson. Peirce’s latest book is Dispatches From the Dark Side: On Torture and the Death of Justice.
Helena Kennedy is one of Britain’s most distinguished lawyers. She has spent her professional life giving voice to those who have least power within the system, championing civil liberties and promoting human rights. She has used many public platforms – including the House of Lords, to which she was elevated in 1997 – to argue with passion, wit and humanity for social justice. She has also written and broadcast on a wide range of issues, from medical negligence to terrorism to the rights of women and children. www.helenakennedy.co.uk
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April 24th, 2011 at 11:53 am
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May 23rd, 2011 at 1:58 pm
I felt that we were particularly privileged to spend an hour in the company of both Gareth Peirce and Helena Kennedy, two giants in the fight against governments more concerned with protecting their own aims and interests than ensuring justice or the rule of law.
Touching on cases such as Moazzam Begg and Binyam Mohamed, Peirce explained how a wholesale rejection of constitutional rights by Bush II encouraged the Blair administration into a copycat introduction of internment without trial and the acceptance of secret and therefore unchallengeable evidence.
She went on to describe how “extraordinary rendition” has led to torture being carried out by unpleasant regimes worldwide, and stressed that if the UK supplies information on prisoners to such regimes then we cannot wash our hands of complicity in their mistreatment.
There was also discussion of al-Megrahi, the so-called “Lockerbie bomber”, who Pierce suggests was framed by governments cynically putting “realpolitik” to the fore.
Pierce fears that once national security is invoked, normal legal rigour is fatally undermined, and that our obsession with secrecy is growing, not abating. She is also particularly concerned that Muslims are replacing the Irish as the new “suspect community”, a situation that bodes ill for us all.
With her quiet, considered style – and staunchly supported by the lively and more pugnatious Kennedy – Peirce made a convincing case that although governments claim that extreme measures are necessary to protect our way of life, the resulting morally and legally compromised morass merely creates a black hole that destroys the very values that they are meant to be defending.
We need to be on our guard. As Benjamin Franklin said – “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.”
March 30th, 2012 at 9:20 am
[...] have not gone away, argued last night’s panel, which included leading human rights lawyer Gareth Pierce, Emily Bolton, project manager of the new Centre for Criminal Appeals and former director of [...]
March 30th, 2012 at 9:22 am
[...] have not gone away, argued last night’s panel, which included leading human rights lawyer Gareth Pierce, Emily Bolton, project manager of the new Centre for Criminal Appeals and former director of [...]