Human Rights in Ireland welcomes this guest post from Emma Cassidy. Emma is a legal and communications trainee with PILnet: the Global Network for Public Interest Law, and is based in the organization’s Budapest office. More information on PILnet’s work can be found at www.pilnet.org or on Twitter @PILnet. Emma tweets in a personal capacity @CassidyEmma.
A tall, bespectacled blonde woman smiling out from behind a dramatic spray of white lilies. The images from 2007 of Dr Lydia Foy outside the High Court are very familiar to anyone interested in transgender rights in Ireland. They were often the stock images that would appear alongside newspaper articles on the dragging intransience of successive governments in relation to gender recognition legislation. I thought of those pictures every year since, wondering if the next 12 months would see the introduction of laws to allow a small section of the Irish population to simply be recognised in their true gender.
Happily, those photos resurfaced last week for an altogether more positive reason. On 28 October, the legal team representing the State said that it was the Irish government’s ‘firm intention’ to legislate as soon as possible. Commitments to publish the Gender Recognition Bill by year’s end and have it on the statute books in 2015 were also made in court. This statement was the end point of a 21-year struggle for Dr Foy, who had been supported and represented by the Dublin-based legal rights group FLAC (The Free Legal Advice Centres) since 1997. Lydia’s previous attempts to get answers from state authorities had resulted in nothing but dead ends. The impact of strategic litigation and lawyers motivated, not by financial gain, but by the overall public interest, cannot be underestimated.
This development in the story of Lydia Foy is particularly timely as the concept of public interest law and pro bono assistance is being celebrated just across the Irish Sea. From 5-7 November, nearly 400 pro bono supporters, including NGO’s, international law firms, solo practitioners, students and academics, from all over Europe will converge on London for the 8th annual PILnet European Pro Bono Forum.
The Forum is a unique event for several different reasons: it is the largest single gathering solely devoted to pro bono issues in Europe; it attracts a diverse, engaged audience of legal professionals and civil society advocates in equal measure, and offers both groups a platform to work together to solve thorny legal issues. The 2014 Forum will also be the lynchpin in a veritable week-long pro bono festival, as it takes place during U.K. National Pro Bono Week.
One only needs to glance at the agenda to recognise that PILnet’s Forum is not about abstract idealistic notions; commendable in theory but with no roots in reality. The workshops and group debates are tackling live legal issues; such as how the U.K. legal landscape has been altered by the legal aid reforms championed by Chris Grayling; how pro bono lawyers can utilise their skills to strengthen the protection of human rights, and how established European legal systems can learn from burgeoning pro bono movements in Ukraine and Nigeria.
The spread of pro bono initiatives across Europe is one of the most exciting developments to take place in the legal sphere in the past ten years. There are now pro bono clearinghouses able to introduce willing pro bono lawyers to those who are otherwise unable to assert their rights. One of the most inspiring parts of each Forum is the distribution of the PILnet European Pro Bono Awards. The prizes, for Extraordinary Contribution and Partnership in the Public Interest, recognise individuals and law firm/NGO collaborations for their exemplary commitment to the pro bono movement in Europe. The competition for this year’s Partnership Award has been especially intense, with four exceptional initiatives shortlisted.
The partnerships represent a broad geographical spread and cover a wide range of legal issues: the work of a network of 60 lawyers with the Polish Society of Antidiscrimination Law; the joint efforts of DLA Piper and UNICEF on child justice; Clifford Chance’s pro bono venture with Fair Trials International, and the Bar Council of Ireland’s commitment to the Magdalene redress scheme have all been singled out for praise this year. The overall award winner will be announced at a ceremony on 6 November but all four partnerships have bolstered the rights of the vulnerable and used law as a force for positive social change.
Pro bono is not perfect. It is never a substitute for underfunded state legal services. We are not naive enough to believe that public interest litigation is a silver bullet for all ills either. The legal fight that continued even after Lydia Foy’s initial High Court victory in 2007 shows us that. But I dread to think how long we would be waiting for transformative legal change (such as gender recognition legislation in Ireland) without public interest litigation and the selfless devotion of pro bono lawyers. It has the potential to provide access to justice for the most marginalised and I, for one, will be waving my metaphorical pro bono flag proudly this week.