Lawyers and the Fight for the Rule of Law

A few days ago Jim Ramelis wrote a post on the incarceration of a Saudi rape victim by Saudi authorities. It was a shocking and sad case, but one of the things I noticed was the fact that there was a lawyer who was willing to be suspended, have his license confiscated, and face disciplinary action, in order to defend this Saudi women from obvious injustice. I've been reading a lot in the news about the bravery of lawyers willing to risk their jobs and their lives to fight for justice. Just a few weeks ago lawyers in Pakistan were fighting soldiers and tear gas to protest Musharraf's attempts to stiffle the rule of law. In the Tuesday edition of the L.A. Times, there was an article by Borzou Daragahi about lawyers in Iran who faced harassment for fighting for peaceful change inside Iraq through the legal system. That shows an admirable courage in a profession that one doesn't often think of when one thinks of activism.

In Iran, there are 27,000 licensed lawyers, but only around 100, including 2004 Nobel Peace leureate Shirin Ebadi, take on tough politically charged cases. Mohammed Saifzadeh, a pious Muslim fom the holy city of Qom, is a lawyer who has taken on more than 300 human rights cases: reporters charged with writing against the system, activists alleged to be subverting national security, scholars accused of insulting Islam, members of the Bahai faith who are rejected from school because of their beliefs. In taking these cases, Saifzadeh has been imprisoned nearly a half a dozen times, and his wife was killed in a suspicious hit and run accident. Lawyers who take on the Iranian Revolutionary Court are often jailed, put under solitary confinement and locked up with common criminals, killers and drug dealers.

In this country, we often look down on lawyers as opportunistic and shady. Yet we see that lawyers in other countries are risking their lives for a fair and impartial legal system. William H. Neukom, an American lawyer, wrote in the November 16 edition of the Christian Science Monitor:

"In part, it is because we see our fellow lawyers and judges in Pakistan doing something dangerous and heroic: standing up to police and soldiers, subjecting themselves to arrest for such ideals as the "rule of law" and an "independent judiciary".
Their bravery reminds us that these ideals are not abstract at all. They are the difference between nations of justice and law, and unchecked tyrannies. This crisis reminds us how precious, and fragile, the rule of law is in the United States and in all nations.
This week, lawyers gathered in Washington and states across the country to express solidarity and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our courageous colleagues in Pakistan.
The American Bar Association and other bar groups have called on General Musharraf to restore the Constitution, re-instate the Supreme Court justices, and free those lawyers he has wrongly arrested. We will continue working until the rule of law is restored in Pakistan.
As lawyers, we see it as no coincidence that Musharraf targeted his crackdown on his nation's legal community, as well as on the press and other organs of civil society.
Like a free press, judges and lawyers who are free from intimidation and outside influence are essential checks to raw power. These agents of liberty are a danger to would-be tyrants, and Musharraf has treated them as such.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, American lawyers helped draft constitutions and train judges whose work would help new democracies emerge.
We appeared to be at the start of a worldwide flowering of liberty, but today, we increasingly see those gains in jeopardy.
To advocates of the rule of law, the recent actions in Pakistan are worse than a misfortune; they are a catastrophic reversal of values we hold dear. And in a world threatened by terrorism and rising autocrats, they make our world more dangerous, not less."