Court Releases Rights Lawyer Detained for Defending Falun Gong

Beijing rights defense lawyer Wang Quanzhang went to court to act as a defense counsel—but ending up being thrown into detention himself. The 10-day detention was cut short, however, after lawyers and citizens protested outside the court and detention center.
The case is the first of its kind where a judge, in open court, has ordered that a working lawyer be detained, according to analyses on Chinese dissident websites, and it has attracted widespread criticism from civil rights lawyers in China.
Wang was attempting to defend Zhu Yanian, a practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that the Chinese Communist Party has persecuted for over 13 years. The persecution of the practice is one of the most politically sensitive topics in China.
 Wang was given a 10-day judicial detention on April 3 and was being held at the Jingjiang Detention Center in the eastern province of Jiangsu.
The Jingjiang City People’s Court issued a terse online statement the following day, saying Wang was being held for “serious violations of court procedure.” It said “the situation was serious,” though failed to specify what violations Wang had committed.
Wang’s client, Zhu Yanian, had been accused under a vaguely defined and legally questionable provision in the criminal code that speaks of using a religious organization to undermine the law. That provision does not mention Falun Gong by name.
He began his defense by requesting the judge be removed from the case, citing a conflict of interest, as Zhu had already filed a lawsuit against him for depriving Zhu of his right to hire his own defense attorney, according to a report by Botanwang, a U.S.-based Chinese language website.
Wang had his cell phone confiscated when he tried to use it to photograph evidence he was submitting in court, and was detained at the end of the trial–an unprecedented move by a Chinese court.
Several lawyers pointed out that Wang had the right to take a copy of evidence he brought into court. Beijing lawyer Cheng Hai told Botanwang that this was just an excuse for locking him up, and that the court had abused its power.
“Perhaps it’s because Wang presented powerful arguments in court, and worried those who have violated the law,” Cheng added.
Li Subin, Wang’s co-counsel at the law firm Qingshi, was refused entry to the court and his license to practice law has been confiscated, the firm said via its Weibo microblog.
A group of 35 lawyers left Beijing for Jingjiang that evening, and submitted a letter of protest Friday to the local authorities, calling for Wang to be released.
“If this case is not immediately set right, it will have a very serious impact nationally and internationally,” the lawyers wrote. “It will harm the image of the Chinese judiciary; it will undermine or destroy the people’s trust in the nation under the rule of law.”
Huang Jiede, Wang’s assistant, said in a blog post that Jingjiang officials, including the public security office and judge Miao Qinqi, telephoned Zhu’s daughter three times before the trial, to pressure Zhu into dismissing Wang. Judge Miao advised Zhu’s daughter to instead hire lawyers from Jingjiang, and added that the court would offer “legal assistance” to Zhu’s family.
According to his assistant, Wang argued that the court had seriously violated the Criminal Procedure Law, because it has presumed that Zhu was guilty for upholding his beliefs. On this basis the public security office had arrested and detained Zhu, ransacked his home, and interrogated him using torture, including holding the 68-year-old next to an air conditioner for three days and nights, Wang contended.
The news that Wang was released came from Beijing lawyer Wu Lei, who posted a message on his Sina Weibo at 2:30 a.m. Saturday Beijing time, saying he was with Wang.
The Falun Gong spiritual discipline has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999, and rights groups say that thousands of practitioners have died from torture and tens of thousands become victims of organ harvesting.
Wang is known for his dogged support of vulnerable groups in China, and for daring to take on sensitive cases. Last year he was dragged out of a court in northeastern China after he attempted to defend a Falun Gong practitioner.

Prominent lawyer had ‘profound effect’ on civil rights law

WASHINGTON — James Nabrit III, a civil rights lawyer who argued several prominent cases involving education and free speech before the Supreme Court from the 1960s to the 1980s, has died at 80.

He had lung cancer, said Elaine Jones, former president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where Nabrit worked for 30 years.

Nabrit, whose father was a leading civil rights lawyer who served as president of Howard University, died March 22 in Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md. He argued a dozen cases before the Supreme Court on such fundamental issues as education, free speech and access to public accommodations.

His most noteworthy case may have been Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver (1973). It was the first school desegregation case to reach the Supreme Court from a state that did not have segregation laws.

The Supreme Court agreed with Nabrit's argument that de facto segregation in Denver left minority students with inferior facilities and staff members, denying students equal opportunity to a good education.

“He really was one of the greatest lawyers in the civil rights movement,” Ted Shaw, a former president and director general of the Legal Defense Fund, said on Tuesday. “Jim was part of the backbone of the legal team that defended civil rights and was partly responsible for bringing civil rights law out of the darkness. He had a profound effect on the law.”

In 1959, Nabrit was hired at the Legal Defense Fund by Thurgood Marshall, who in 1967 became the first black justice on the Supreme Court. Nabrit recalled working on cases with Marshall in Louisiana, where a guard was stationed outside their room at night with a shotgun.

Nabrit handled several sit-in cases in which black college students were denied service in restaurants and other public accommodations in the 1960s. He worked on school discrimination cases in Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana, as well as death penalty cases in Alabama, Florida and other states.

“The Supreme Court was ahead of the other branches of government in opposing discrimination,” Nabrit said in a 2001 interview with Washington Lawyer magazine. “President Eisenhower and President Kennedy both supported some aspects of civil rights legislation, but the court was the leading institution.”

In 1965, after filing a lawsuit on behalf of civil rights leader Hosea Williams, Nabrit and LDF President Jack Greenberg wrote a plan approved by a federal judge that allowed the Selma-to-Montgomery march, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., to go ahead.

Nabrit worked on the Supreme Court appeal of a case from Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 in which King and other marchers were jailed after they were denied permission to stage a march. While incarcerated, King wrote his celebrated “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”

“There are a lot of people who are heroes whose names are well-known,” Jones, who was president of the Legal Defense Fund from 1993 to 2004, said on Tuesday. “Jim Nabrit is one of those unsung heroes whose names were not known. The heroes we know of depended on his advice.”

Nabrit graduated from Yale Law School in 1955. He served in the Army and practiced in Washington before joining the Legal Defense Fund.

President Obama nominates Hispanic lawyer who heads Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division as Labor Secretary

JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS

President Obama applauds after introducing his nominee for Labor Secretary, Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, at the White House on Monday.

President Barack Obama nominated Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez to be the next secretary of labor, choosing a Hispanic lawyer with experience in civil rights and workplace issues to his second-term Cabinet. Obama called Perez a consensus builder whose story "reminds us of this country's promise."
"Tom's made protecting that promise for everybody the cause of his life," Obama said in an appearance with Perez in the White House East Room Monday.
If confirmed by the Senate, Perez, who has been head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division since 2009, would take over the Labor Department as Obama undertakes several worker-oriented initiatives, including an overhaul of immigration laws and an increase in the minimum wage.
Before taking the job as assistant attorney general, the 51-year-old Perez was secretary of Maryland's Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which enforces state consumer rights, workplace safety and wage and hour laws.
Perez has broad support from labor and from the Latino community. Among those at the White House ceremony Monday were AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous.
Perez also has Republican congressional critics who can be expected to oppose his confirmation. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called the nomination "unfortunate and needlessly divisive."
In choosing Perez, the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Obama would be nominating his first second-term Latino Cabinet member. Perez, a lawyer with a degree from Harvard Law School, would replace Hilda Solis, a former California congresswoman and the nation's first Hispanic labor secretary.
At the Justice Department, Perez has played a leading role in the agency's decision to challenge voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina that could restrict minority voting rights. A federal court later struck down the Texas law and delayed implementation of the law in South Carolina until after the 2012 election.
RELATED: OBAMA PICKS NEW EPA, ENERGY AND BUDGET CHIEFS
Perez thanked Obama, interspersing some Spanish into his remarks.
"Our nation still faces critical economic challenges, and the department's mission is as important as ever," Perez said.
Citing his past work as a civil rights lawyer, a Senate aide and as a member of on the Montgomery County Council in Washington's Maryland suburbs, Obama said: "Tom fought for a level playing field where hard work and responsibility are rewarded and working families can get ahead."
Perez's nomination has been expected for weeks, and comes with vigorous support from labor unions and Latino groups.
But some GOP lawmakers have been critical. Sessions said Perez "has aggressively sought ways to allow the hiring of more illegal workers."
Other Republicans have cited his role in persuading the city of St. Paul, Minn., to withdraw a lending discrimination lawsuit from the Supreme Court. In exchange, the Justice Department declined to join two whistle-blower lawsuits against St. Paul that could have returned millions in damages to the federal government.
The St. Paul case had challenged the use of statistics to prove race discrimination under the 1968 Fair Housing Act, and Justice Department officials were concerned the court could strike down the practice.
Moreover, a newly released report by the Justice Department's inspector general is likely to provide more fodder for Republicans who say the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has been too politicized.
RELATED: JACOB LEW CONFIRMED AS TREASURY SECRETARY
The report, released last week, said Perez gave incomplete testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights when he said the department's political leadership was not involved in the decision to dismiss three of the four defendants in a lawsuit the Bush administration brought against the New Black Panther Party.
The report also concluded that Perez did not intentionally mislead the commission and that the department acted properly.
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said Perez appeared to be "woefully unprepared to answer questions" from the Civil Rights Commission.
Lynn Rhinehart, general counsel at the AFL-CIO, said the report shows that Perez, who was first hired by the civil rights division as a career attorney under President George H.W. Bush, restored integrity to the voting rights program at the Justice Department.
"The DOL becomes a back-burner agency without a secretary who knows how move workplace issues through the administration, the Hill and the business and labor communities," said Steve Rosenthal, a longtime labor strategist and former associated deputy secretary of labor during the Clinton administration. "Those are difficult waters to navigate. But Tom Perez is guy who can do it."
Perez was confirmed by a vote of 72-22 when Obama nominated him for the Civil Rights Division job.
Carl Tobias, an expert on the confirmation process and the Justice Department, said Perez' confirmation vote might be more difficult this time around because the Senate is more partisan, it is Obama's second term and the job is for a Cabinet level.
"Heading CRD means that he had to address many difficult, contentious issues," said Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law

Libya: Ensure Abdallah Sanussi Access to Lawyer

(Tripoli)–  Abdallah Sanussi, the long-time intelligence chief for Muammar Gaddafi, told Human Rights Watch in a prison visit on April 15, 2013, that he has not had access to a lawyer or been informed of the formal charges against him during almost eight months in Libyan detention. He did not complain of physical abuse and said his conditions in custody have been “reasonable.”

Libyan authorities have accused Sanussi of serious crimes during his many years as Gaddafi’s senior security official, including involvement in the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre in which roughly 1,200 prisoners were killed. He is also wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity for his alleged role in trying to suppress the 2011 uprising that led to Gaddafi’s overthrow.

“Libya’s wish to put the people they hold responsible for gross human rights violations on trial is fully understandable,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “But to achieve true justice, they need to give Sanussi the rights that the previous government denied Libyans for so long. To start, that means making sure he can consult a lawyer.”

The Libyan government should immediately ensure that Sanussi has full access to a lawyer of his own choosing, whether a Libyan lawyer or one from abroad, and formally notify him of the charges he faces in Libya, Human Rights Watch said. The authorities should also allow visits by lawyers authorized to represent Sanussi before the International Criminal Court.

Human Rights Watch interviewed Sanussi in the al-Hadhba Corrections Facility in Tripoli, a newly renovated facility holding several senior Gaddafi-era officials, where he has been held since his extradition from Mauritania in September 2012. The visit, the first to Sanussi by an international human rights group, was facilitated by Justice Minister Salah Marghani and the acting head of the detention facility.

Prison authorities permitted Human Rights Watch to interview Sanussi privately, with no prison staff or other officials in the room.

Justice Minister Marghani told Human Rights Watch after the visit that “Sanussi has the right to a defense lawyer of his choice like any other person standing trial.” He said that so far no Libyan lawyer had taken on the case. A foreign lawyer with permission to practice in Libya could also represent Sanussi, Marghani said.

Marghani assured Human Rights Watch that “Libya is committed to provide a fair trial,” adding that Libyan law says that “no trial should take place without the presence of a defense lawyer.”

Despite the challenges, the Libyan government should facilitate immediate and ongoing access to a lawyer of Sanussi's choosing, including a government-appointed lawyer if Sanussi fails to appoint one on his own, Human Rights Watch said.

On June 27, 2011, during the Libya conflict, the ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Sanussi, Muammar Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi’s son, who is currently detained in Zintan. The three were wanted for crimes against humanity for attacks on civilians, including peaceful demonstrators, in Tripoli, Benghazi, Misrata, and other locations in Libya. The ICC warrants apply only to events in Libya beginning on February 15, 2011. While the ICC's proceeding against Muammar Gaddafi was terminated following his death in October 2011, the arrest warrants for Sanussi and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi remain in force.

If a concerned country wishes to try an ICC suspect domestically for crimes in an ICC arrest warrant, the authorities may challenge the court's jurisdiction over the case through a legal submission called an “admissibility challenge.” On May 1, 2012, Libya challenged the admissibility of the ICC's case against Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and on April 2, 2013, it challenged the admissibility of Sanussi’s case. It will be up to ICC judges to decide if national proceedings exist that meet the criteria for a successful challenge.

Libya should cooperate fully with the ICC, as required by UN Security Council resolution 1970, which authorized the ICC investigation, Human Rights Watch said.This cooperation includes abiding by the ICC’s decisions and requests, as well as adhering to the court's procedures.

In any domestic proceedings, Libya will face steep challenges in ensuring security for the judges, prosecutors, lawyers and witnesses involved in the case, especially those supporting the accused, Human Rights Watch said. A vigorous and effective defense is a crucial fair trial right.

At all times Libya is required by human rights standards to respect the basic rights of detainees, and anyone facing a criminal trial, including the right of access to a lawyer.

International standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, require providing defendants with prompt access to a lawyer, meaning no later than 48 hours after their arrest. The Basic Principles state that detainees shall have “adequate opportunities, time and facilities to be visited by and to communicate and consult with a lawyer, without delay, interception, or censorship and in full confidentiality. Such consultations may be within sight, but not within the hearing, of law enforcement officials.” Libya’s Constitutional Declaration acknowledges the central role of international human rights treaties.

Human Rights Watch has previously reported on the challenges facing the Libyan judicial system, including abuse in custody, denied access to lawyers, and the lack of judicial reviews.

Sanussi was the brother-in-law of Muammar Gaddafi and his long-time head of intelligence. He is accused of involvement in serious human rights violations during Gaddafi’s rule, most prominently the June 1996 Abu Salim prison killings. Prisoners who were at the prison at that time but who survived told Human Rights Watch that Sanussi was the government’s chief negotiator with the inmates, and that he promised them safe treatment prior to the killings.

In 1999, Sanussi was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison in France for his part in the 1989 bombing of a passenger jet over Niger.

“The treatment of Sanussi is a major test for the new Libya,” Whitson said. “Will the new Libyan state treat him fairly and show that it is now committed to and governed by the rule of law?”

 Prison Visit to Sanussi

Legal Counsel
The April 15 visit to Sanussi took place in the director’s office of the al-Hadhba Corrections Facility, without any officials present, and lasted 30 minutes. The facility is in the al-Hadhba military academy in Tripoli and is administered by the judicial police under the authority of the Justice Ministry.

Sanussi, who wore a long white tunic over white trousers, a traditional Libyan garment, said he had no complaints about his treatment and conditions except that authorities did not permit him to leave his cell to exercise. The acting head of the facility, Mohamed Gweider, subsequently told Human Rights Watch that he would allow Sanussi to exercise in the open air for one hour each day.

Sanussi’s main complaint was lack of access to a lawyer since his extradition in September 2012. “I asked for a lawyer on the second or third day after my arrival here in Libya,” he told Human Rights Watch, adding “I haven’t seen or spoken with a lawyer yet.”

Under Libya’s code of criminal procedure, the state must allow a detainee access to a lawyer during an investigation if the person asks for one. If the detainee does not have or cannot find a lawyer, the Libyan authorities are required under international law to assign him a lawyer, without fee if the person cannot afford it.

Sanussi also complained that authorities had not told him the precise charges that he faces in Libya. He said he is aware that he is wanted for serious crimes at the ICC from media reports he saw prior to his arrest. “I am ready to face these charges,” he told Human Rights Watch.

International law requires anyone facing a criminal proceeding “to be informed promptly and in detail in a language he understands of the nature and cause of the charge against him,” so that the person can prepare a defense.

Sanussi said he was not aware of having legal representation for the proceedings against him at the ICC. “I don’t know about a lawyer who represents me in The Hague,” he said. “I haven’t seen or spoken to anyone.”

On January 15, the ICC provisionally acknowledged the appointment of a London-based lawyer as counsel for Sanussi. On February 6, the ICC judges asked Libya to arrange a privileged visit between Sanussi and his defense team before the ICC but, as of April 16, no meeting had taken place.

Regarding access to a lawyer, Gweider said that Sanussi is “free to bring a lawyer if he wants,” although he said that it will probably be difficult to find a Libyan lawyer to represent him.

In its submission to the ICC on April 2, Libya said it “remains keen to facilitate a privileged legal visit to Abdullah al‑Sanussi by his lawyer and wishes to conclude a Memorandum of Understanding with the ICC as soon as possible for this purpose.” Libya attributed the delay to its recent replacement of the general prosecutor and said it would address the issue of legal access for Sanussi “as a matter of priority.” Sanussi’s lawyers before the ICC, however, argue that Libya has ignored the ICC judges’ order requiring arrangements to be made for a visit by the lawyers engaged to represent him.

On March 20, Abdul Qader Juma Radwanreplaced Abdelaziz al-Hasadias Libya’s General Prosecutor.

Sanussi said that he has been taken before a judge about once a month to review his detention. Each time the judge has extended the detention, he said. “During these sessions, I have asked the judge to let me see my family and I have asked for a lawyer,” Sanussi said.

The former intelligence chief said that Libyan investigators had questioned him mainly during the first five months of his detention, and that their treatment of him had been “reasonable.”

Sanussi also complained about limited family visits. He said he had received only one family visit during his almost eight months in detention, by his daughter Anoud, who is also detained in Libya. Asked about this, Gweider confirmed that he had denied two family visits on security grounds.

Arrest Details
Sanussi provided hitherto unknown details of his arrest and transfer to Libya. He said Moroccan authorities had arrested him in March 2012 and then detained him for about 12 days before putting him on a plane to Mauritania, where he was handed over to Mauritanian authorities upon arrival, on March 17.

He said the Mauritanian authorities held him in a military academy and also a house in the capital, Nouakchott, where they interrogated him and also allowed officials from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the United States to question him. US officials, who Sanussi said were from the FBI, had access to him twice. He said his treatment throughout was “reasonable” and that the Mauritanian authorities allowed him access to lawyers, as well as some family visits.

On September 5, Mauritanian authorities transferred Sanussi to Libya. He said they woke him around 7 a.m. and told him he was meeting Mauritania’s head of intelligence, but instead took him to the airport and flew him to Tripoli. He has been held at the al-Hadhba facility since his return.

Human Rights Watch is unable to independently verify Sanussi’s account of his detention in Morocco or Mauritania, or his transfer to Libya.

Detention Conditions
Human Rights Watch viewed Sanussi’s cell, measuring approximately three by four meters. It had one small window high up on a wall, which was closed. The cell contained a small bathroom with toilet, sink and shower, and there was a mattress on the floor for sleeping, with blankets and pillow. Plastic bags propped against the wall contained Sanussi’s clothes and foodstuffs.

The al-Hadhba correctional facility currently has 144 inmates, all of them men, including Sanussi and a number of other former high-ranking officials, Gweider told Human Rights Watch. Roughly half the detainees are alleged to have been involved in the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre, but the cases of those accused of those crimes have not yet reached the prosecution stage. They are being held in an adjacent facility under the authority of the National Guard and supervised by Gweider.

Gweider said he and other officials face great pressure from Libyans who harbor intense anger at Sanussi and other former Gaddafi officials for the killings, disappearances and torture committed by the previous government during its four decades in power. “Despite this, we want to be different,” he said. “We want to show them that we are not like them, so we try to treat them better.”

Gweider said that he had ordered the removal of several guards from the al-Hadhba facility after upholding a prisoner’s complaint against them.

Security is a major concern at the prison, Gweider told Human Rights Watch. “There is always the fear that we could be targeted because of whom we’re safeguarding,” he said. “We are exposed to danger at all times.”

Bill 101 should not be subject to tinkering, civil rights lawyer says

QUEBEC — The Charter of the French Language is not the kind of law politicians should tinker with every few years for political reasons, respected civil rights lawyer Julius Grey says.
And one of the newly minted minority rights groups — this one including former Equality Party leader and MNA Robert Libman — has urged Quebec to reconsider Bill 14 in the name of social peace and linguistic harmony.
“I have adopted the slogan the nationalists had in the 1990s, ‘Ne touchez pas à la loi 101,’ ” Grey quipped as he opened his presentation to the National Assembly committee studying the bill.
“It cannot be changed every four years. I have come to accept over the years it’s a fundamental and basic law. If that is so, it cannot be an issue in every election campaign.
“Let it do its work and not try and change it.”
Grey — who has fought many language and human rights issues in the courts over the years — nevertheless made a number of comments:
Unlike some groups, Grey said he believes French still needs protection in the North American context, but he notes that for the charter to be effective it has to be accepted “by all elements of society.”
He took particular issue with the clause that would give Quebec the right to take away official bilingual status from a municipality. He said nobody can show how French is in danger if places like Westmount, Hampstead or Greenfield Park send out English as well as French pamphlets to taxpayers.
“There’s no effect on French whatsoever therefore it’s a gratuitous change,” Grey said.
Basing the decision on census data and a 50 per cent threshold is “simplistic,” he added, because people increasingly consider themselves anglophone and francophone at the same time.
Grey says the concern some minority groups have that replacing the term “ethnic minorities” with “cultural communities” in the charter weakens their rights is unfounded.
“There is no danger,” Grey said. “This is not the Sudan. Nobody needs help from the United Nations to maintain their rights. They’re worrying for nothing.”
Grey is concerned with the proliferation of new inspections the bill foresees. He said they don’t pose a danger for the majority or linguistic minorities but “the rights and freedoms of everyone.”
Instead of reducing the bureaucratization of the law and curbing arbitrary powers, “we are witnessing an expansion.
Despite strong opposition by the business lobby to new francization measures in shops and stores, the proposed new rules do not impose a too heavy burden as long as businesses are helped by the government to adjust, he said.
Unlike the more aggressive tone at Tuesday’s hearings, Grey’s presentation went off without a hitch with a number of committee members saying they were honoured he appeared.
Everyone shook his hand.
The mood was equally relaxed an hour earlier when the group, Canadian Rights in Quebec (CRITIQ), presented its brief and that despite the fact the group’s document blasts the bill to smithereens.
Group members included Libman, an architect who was the MNA for D’Arcy McGee from 1989-1994, Richard Yufe, a Montreal lawyer, and newspaper publisher Beryl Wajsman.

“We think the adoption of Bill 14 threatens social peace and risks opening old wounds,” Libman told the committee. He said his goal was to convince the Liberals and Coalition Avenir Québec MNA to vote down the bill.
The Liberals plan to vote against the bill; the CAQ will unless there are radical changes.
And earlier, the association representing Quebec’s 300 manufacturers and exporters added their name to the long list of business groups coming out against Bill 14.
“Bill 14 is a solution in search of a problem,” Simon Prévost, president of the Manufacturiers et exportateurs du Québec, told the committee.
“When we look at the linguistic situation, we do not see any necessity to intervene now. We don’t see anything very alarming in the numbers right now.”
Not only does the proposed legislation add red tape and costs, it sends a negative message that could hamper foreign investment here, the association said.
And it implies that having a working knowledge of English and using it to communicate in the workplace is somehow a bad thing in Quebec, the group said.

What would be a major victory or advance for you on the path towards greater justice for trans people?

I’ll name a few of the things people in the US are working on that would be a significant benefit to trans people’s well-being: decriminalizing prostitution, stopping federal programs where local police forces turn immigrants they arrest over to the immigration authorities, ending exclusion of trans health care from health insurance programs, getting rid of surgery requirements for changing gender on ID, decriminalizing drugs, ending “3 strikes” laws, getting rid of sex offender registries. These are all vitally important efforts to address the violence trans people are facing, and they are part of broader trans political visions of a world without prisons, border, or poverty.

In your organizing and activism, you follow a different approach. Tell us about that.

I’m part of trans activism and organizing that centers poverty and racism. This work aims to analyze what is actually shortening trans people’s lives and work on changing those material conditions, so it centers trans people experiencing imprisonment, poverty, immigration enforcement and other life and death issues. It seeks to provide immediate support to people in those conditions, to dismantle systems that create those dangers, and to build systems and ways of being together that actually give people what they need.

You’ve expressed serious concerns about trans people’s push for formal legal equality, such as their inclusion in protection from hate crime. What’s wrong with that goal?

Hate crime laws that provide more resources to law enforcement and/or enhance criminal penalties have been critiqued by many trans organizations and activists because they do nothing to prevent attacks against trans people but they expand the criminal punishment system which is the most significant source of violence against trans people in the U.S. They build that system in our names, and that system has been growing rapidly for several decades, such that now the US is the most imprisoning country in the world, with five per cent of the world’s population and 25 per cent of the world’s prisoners. A trans movement that is really about reducing harm and violence to trans people has to be an anti-criminalization movement, and a movement that doesn’t just try to get the law to say something our lives are meaningful, but instead seeks to dismantle legal systems that are killing us.

This year it’s ten years since same-sex marriage was first possible in Canada and the US Supreme Court will soon rule on the question. What is so troublesome about the push for same-sex marriage?

The same-sex marriage agenda in the U.S. has been heavily critiqued by a wide variety of queer and trans activists because it fails to meaningfully address the key material problems facing queer and trans people, such as criminalization, immigration enforcement, poverty, health care access and homelessness, while it consumes enormous resources. It also has been a conservative shift in queer and trans politics, which has moved away from feminist and anti-racist critiques of marriage as a terrible and unfair way to distribute life chances and toward a conservative celebration of marriage as key to healthy families. This has happened alongside a right wing push in the U.S. to blame poverty on people’s failure to marry and to further cut poverty alleviation programs. In the U.S., after same-sex marriage is legal, queer and trans people will still face the same problems of a racist and violent growing immigration enforcement system, a growing wealth divide, and racist mass imprisonment. Some people who have immigration status or wealth to share with a partner will benefit, but the queer and trans people in the worst situations will still be facing the same dangers.

Four Burning Questions for Dean Spade, professor, lawyer, civil rights activist

By McGill Reporter Staff
Dean Spade is a lawyer, civil rights activist, and Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law, where he teaches Administrative Law, Poverty Law, and Law and Social Movements. Before joining the faculty at Seattle, he taught classes related to sexual orientation, gender identity, and law and social movements at UCLA Law School and Harvard Law School as a Williams Institute Law Teaching Fellow. In 2002, Spade founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit law collective that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people who are low-income, people of color, or both. His book Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law was published in 2011.
Spade will be one of three panelists at the event Radical Formations: Sex, Race, Trans on Friday, April 12, 4-5:30 pm in the McIntyre Medical Building, Room 522 (reception to follow). The panel is presented by Professor Robert Leckey, William Dawson Scholar in the Faculty of Law, and the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Gender Studies. For more information or to register, please go here.

GOP issues critical report of labor secretary nominee Perez

Republican lawmakers sharply criticized Thomas Perez, the nominee for labor secretary, in a report Sunday over what they said was a questionable deal he brokered while serving as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The 63-page report, issued after months of investigation, is certain to provide fodder for Republicans seeking to challenge Perez at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday.
The GOP lawmakers accuse Perez of misusing his power last year to persuade the city of St. Paul, Minn., to withdraw a housing discrimination case before it could be heard by the Supreme Court. In exchange, the Justice Department agreed not to intervene in two whistleblower cases against St. Paul that could have won up to $200 million for taxpayers.
Perez has defended his reason for wanting St. Paul to drop its case, telling investigators that he feared an adverse ruling from the Supreme Court would jeopardize the government’s use of statistics to win housing discrimination cases. The Justice Department also says Perez got proper clearance and made the deal in the best interests of the nation.
But Republicans say the deal was dubious, that Perez misled senior officials about his intentions and that he tried to cover up the true reason for his decision not to intervene in the whistleblower cases. “This offer was inappropriate and potentially violated Perez’s duty of loyalty to his client, the United States,” said the report from Sen. Charles E. Grassley, California Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (Va.). Issa is chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Goodlatte heads the House Judiciary Committee. Grassley is top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued a report on the investigation Sunday, writing that Perez “acted professionally to advance the interests of civil rights and effectively combat the scourge of housing discrimination.” The Justice Department also defended Perez, saying litigation decisions made by the department “were in the best interests of the United States and were consistent with the department’s legal, ethical and professional responsibility obligations.”
The GOP report cites documents that suggest Perez’s decision frustrated and confused career lawyers at Justice who initially wanted to join the whistleblower cases against St. Paul. These lawyers described the department’s change of heart as “weirdness,” “ridiculous” and a case of “cover your head pingpong.”
Democrats say Perez was up front about using the strategy and cleared it with ethics and professional responsibility officials before it was finalized. Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli told investigators that it was common Justice Department practice to encourage parties not to pursue Supreme Court cases with poor fact patterns that could lead to adverse national interests.
“Instead of identifying inappropriate conduct by Mr. Perez, it appears that the accusations against him are part of a broader political campaign to undermine the legal safeguards against discrimination that Mr. Perez was protecting,” said the staff memo issued Sunday by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Labor Nominee's Civil Rights Work Draws Praise, Controversy

President Obama's nominee to lead the Labor Department has been one of the most aggressive advocates for civil rights in decades. Tom Perez prosecuted a record number of hate crimes cases and extracted huge settlements from banks that overcharged minorities for home loans.
But some Republican lawmakers say those same qualities give them pause about voting to confirm Perez as a Cabinet member.
'Making A Huge Difference'
As the son of Dominican immigrants, and a guy who helped put himself through Ivy League schools by working as a garbage collector, Perez knows something about climbing the ladder.
"Over my career, I've learned that true progress is possible if you keep an open mind, listen to all sides and focus on results," he said last month during the White House rollout of his nomination.
About those results: For more than three years, Perez has run the civil rights unit as an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, where he has sued Texas and South Carolina over voting rights and searched for abusive law enforcement patterns in more than a dozen police departments.
Perez has done something else, too, says Mark Perriello, president of the American Association of People With Disabilities.
"All the work that he has done to secure the rights of people with disabilities to live independently in the community, to have access to polling, to have access to simple things like technology and watching Netflix with your family at home at night has been nothing less than stellar," Perriello says. "He is making a huge difference."
Perriello and dozens of other disability rights advocates have just to support Perez as labor secretary.
It's support the nominee may need to counter vocal opposition from Republican lawmakers like Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley.
"This person's going to have trouble — both through the committee process and on the floor," Grassley says. "He's got a lot of questions to answer."
A Quid Pro Quo?
Grassley and two House Republicans, Darrell Issa of California and Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, released a report late Sunday that blasted Perez for his role in what they call a quid pro quo last year, when the Justice Department agreed not to support a big whistle-blower lawsuit against St. Paul, Minn., for mishandling federal money.
The report drafted by congressional Republicans says Perez's testimony about the episode conflicts with that of other accounts from people inside the Justice Department and lawyers in Minnesota who worked on the issue.
"Perez's inconsistent testimony on a range of subjects calls into question the reliability of his testimony and raises questions about his truthfulness during his transcribed interview," the report said.
The report also alleges Perez engineered a plan to back away from the whistle-blower case without notifying his superiors or ethics lawyers at Justice about all the facts, and that he meddled with the decision-making by career lawyers in the government, while asking them to avoid putting the details in writing, placing "ideology over objectivity and politics over the rule of law."
The situation "confused and frustrated the career Justice Department attorneys ... who described the situation as 'weirdness,' 'ridiculous' and 'cover your head ping pong,' " the report added.
House Democrats countered that the criticism was political.
"Instead of identifying inappropriate conduct by Mr. Perez, it appears that the accusations against him are part of a broader political campaign to undermine the legal safeguards against discrimination that Mr. Perez was protecting," they said in a statement.
Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson also defended Perez's actions in an emailed statement. "The resolution reached in these cases was in the best interests of the United States and consistent with the Department's broad discretion to consider policy and other factors — including pending litigation — in resolving False Claims Act [whistle-blower] matters," Iverson said.
She pointed out that private plaintiffs still were allowed to move forward with their whistle-blower case.
"The Department's decision was appropriate, and followed an examination of the relevant facts, legal, and policy considerations at issue, and following Mr. Perez's consultation with career ethics officers," she added.
St. Paul leaders agreed to drop their Supreme Court challenge to a legal tool known as disparate impact theory that the Justice Department often uses in housing discrimination cases. (For an explanation of disparate impact theory, check out . There's more background on the Supreme Court case and the St. Paul whistle-blower lawsuit .)
Grassley says that kind of arrangement is not against the law, "but it looks pretty bad right now when somebody at that high level of government makes a quid pro quo that costs the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars ... just for the purpose, for philosophical or ideological purposes, to get a case to the Supreme Court dropped."
Facing Questions
Asked if he would be prepared to block the Perez nomination, Grassley replied: "I'm at least prepared to resist any attempt to bring it up until we get all of our questions answered."
At his Senate confirmation hearing before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Thursday, Perez could face even more questions about his management at the Justice Department's civil rights unit. The department's inspector general recently concluded the atmosphere there is filled with partisanship and bullying, though watchdogs say most of that trouble dates back a decade, before Perez arrived.
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee is planning its own hearing this week on those issues. In a statement to NPR, Goodlatte, the committee chairman, said he was "shocked the President is moving forward with this nomination. ... Mr. Perez should face tough questions about this backroom deal he helped coordinate, his role in interfering with a Supreme Court case, and his mismanagement of the Civil Rights Division."
Supporters of Perez say the White House knew all about those controversies when it nominated him to lead the Labor Department. Obama says he wants Perez to play a big role in such issues as long-term unemployment, immigration and the minimum wage.
"His story," the president said last month, "reminds us of this country's promise: That if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is, you can make it if you try."
Perez is in line to become one of the highest-profile Latino Cabinet members in recent memory, if he can get past Senate Republicans

Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyers and Attorneys

Our criminal defense attorneys and lawyers have many years of experience prosecuting cases and have worked in the criminal courts in Los Angeles County, and some have worked both as a deputy district attorney, and criminal defense attorney. We have the proven criminal law experience, courtroom trial experience and skills necessary to defend your case in Los Angeles County, California.
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The criminal law attorneys at the Law Offices of Anthony Vieira have the ability and courage to do what’s necessary to help clients and their loved ones in time of need.  We have been battling injustice for many years, and we know the territory — extremely well.   The criminal defense attorneys at The Law Offices of Anthony E. Vieira have the experience you can trust and the ability needed to boldly challenge any circumstance that is contrary to fairness and justice.

Civil Rights

The field of "civil rights" is very broad. It includes discrimination against racial minorities, women, GLBT members, the disabled, immigrants and others, each of which is a large subject on its own. And it also includes, especially if one merges civil rights with civil liberties, the rights of workers and unions, including employment discrimination, criminal justice issues, aspects of family law, and perhaps other fields. Other law school area groups have written memoranda to guide interested students.
Turning to civil rights, there are some preliminary observations to keep in mind. First, Constitutional Law is obviously a building block for this area, and as a required course everyone will take it. Many students may want to take con law in the first year, although there are two reservations here: the first year course is four credit hours and some of the other sections are five, and if a student wants to study with a particular con law professor he or she may not be teaching the first year section.
A second observation is that however important offerings in the civil rights field are (we discuss these below), students should not confine themselves to such courses because other courses provide context, insights and skills that are valuable to all lawyers, including civil rights lawyers.
Some of these courses are Administrative Law, Conflicts of Laws, Evidence or Civil Litigation, Corporate Law, Federal Courts, Negotiation or Mediation, State Constitutional Law or State Court Practice, Statutory Interpretation or Legislation, Taxation and Trial Advocacy. Students who are more (or less) interested in litigation will of course take that into account in appraising these courses.
A related point is that students should consider also courses or seminars that are further afield from civil rights. We will not attempt to list these here, but there are many areas which will broaden individuals even if they have no apparent or immediate payoff in the civil rights field. In such cases a student should consider the intructor as well as the course. Such courses might include Law and Literature, Business Crimes and International Law (in one of its many manifestations). Other examples, perhaps a step closer to civil rights, are Counterterrorism, Comparative Constitutional Law, and one of the offerings on free speech.
When one looks for courses that are more centrally concerned with civil rights, in the fall can be mentioned Education Law, Employment Law, Family Law or Child, Parent and State, Immigration Law and Separation of Powers. . . . In the spring are Affirmative Action Today, Colloquium on Education Law and Policy, Constitutional Litigation, Immigration Law (again), Groups, Individuals and the Law, Women at Work, Employment Law (again), and Topics in Labor and Employment.
Not all of the courses and seminars mentioned above are offered every year.
We have reserved the clinics for last, both because they are taken for more credits than ordinary courses and seminars, and because NYU has an enormous range of clinics taught by professors who are experienced in the field as well as familiar with the theory and doctrine of the subject. There are approximately 15 clinics in each of the fall and spring, although some are year-long. Many are in the civil rights field, and therefore most students interested in civil rights, broadly construed, apply to a clinic. Conversation with students currently in a clinic is advised, as is reading the valuable report of the Clinical Area Group on its offerings.
We hope this memorandum is helpful. Members of the Civil Rights Area Group are available to counsel students with particular questions.

Civil rights lawyers: NYPD spying violates rules

WASHINGTON (AP) — The New York Police Department's focus on Muslims has renewed the political surveillance of the 1960s and '70s that was banned under a landmark legal ruling, according to a new court filing by civil rights lawyers. They are seeking an injunction against further surveillance of Muslims without evidence of crimes and a new court-appointed auditor to oversee police activities.

Describing continuing surveillance of Muslims as "widespread and intense," the civil rights lawyers complained that the NYPD has monitored public places where Muslims eat, shop and worship and has kept records and notes about police observations despite any evidence of unlawful or terror-related activities. The lawyers said the NYPD's actions violate rules, known as the Handschu guidelines, that a court had imposed as part of a 1985 landmark settlement with the NYPD to a lawsuit they filed.

"There is substantial persuasive evidence that the defendants are conducting investigations into organizations and individuals associated with the Muslim faith and the Muslim community in New York, and have been doing so for years, using intrusive methods, without a reasonable indication of unlawful activity, or a criminal predicate of any sort," the lawyers wrote in a motion filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They said the NYPD's actions were so "flagrant and persistent" that an auditor should be appointed.

A spokesman for the NYPD did not respond to a phone message and email request for comment from The Associated Press.

The NYPD and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said the department follows the Handschu guidelines and did not break any laws over the course of its surveillance of Muslim communities. NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said the department has plenty of oversight, including five district attorneys, a committee that investigates police corruption, the NYPD's own internal affairs office and the court-imposed Handschu guidelines.

The spying was the subject of a series of stories by the AP that revealed the NYPD intelligence division infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups and investigated hundreds. The NYPD is the largest police department in the nation, and Bloomberg has held up its counterterrorism tactics as a model for the rest of the country. The new court motion by the civil rights lawyers refers repeatedly to the AP's reporting and includes some internal NYPD documents the AP had obtained and published.

The motion focuses on a particular section of the NYPD's intelligence division known initially as the Demographics Unit and later renamed the Zone Assessment Unit. This unit is at the heart of the NYPD's spying program, built with help from the CIA. It assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.
Supporters said the Demographics Unit was central to keeping the city safe, though a senior NYPD official testified last year that the unit never generated any leads or triggered a terrorism investigation.

The Handschu guidelines came out of landmark lawsuit the lawyers filed and a subsequent 1985 court settlement that set strict time limits for investigations, imposed rules on the kinds of records police could keep and created a three-person body to oversee such investigations.

The last time civil rights lawyers in the Handshu case filed a motion like this was in November 2005. It was not immediately clear when the judge will make a ruling on the new motion.

Civil Rights Lawyers Claim Victory in Fees Case

A Boston-based federal appeals court published a ruling Friday afternoon that has civil rights attorneys rejoicing.
The topic: attorney fees.
The case involved a housekeeper, Carmen Diaz, at a hotel in Dorchester, Mass., who sued her employer in 2008, alleging age discrimination, civil rights violations and defamation, among other things. Only two age-discrimination claims made it to trial. Ms. Diaz prevailed on one of them and was awarded $7,650 in damages.
Here’s where the case gets interesting. Ms. Diaz sought $139,622 in attorney fees. The judge, William G. Young, reckoned her lawyer, Lynn A. Leonard, should get about a third of that amount, since just two of six claims survived and only one was successful.
Then Judge Young reduced the fees more — to $25,000 — after discovering that the hotel had offered Ms. Diaz $75,000 to settle the claims prior to trial. Ms. Leonard would have taken in about a third of that in fees if her client had agreed to the settlement, and Ms. Diaz would have walked away with $50,000 instead of $7,650, Judge Young reasoned.
Though Judge Young said he didn’t doubt the integrity of Ms. Leonard, he nevertheless cut her fees “to deter lawyers from discouraging settlements in order to get rich on the backs of their clients.”
Several groups — including the Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action — urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to reverse Judge Young’s ruling.
In a friend-of-the-court brief, the groups argued that the ruling created a “Catch-22″ for the civil rights attorney:

She is obliged to accede to the dictates of her client to reject a settlement or face severe disciplinary sanction, but if she properly adheres to her obligations and rejects settlement at the client’s behest, she may be penalized by the trial court through a substantial reduction of attorneys’ fees. That is unjust.

In a Sept. 18 opinion that was made public Friday afternoon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that Judge Young “improperly focused” on Ms. Diaz’s rejection of the settlement in calculating the fees.
Judge Michael Hawkins (a Ninth Circuit judge on loan to the First Circuit) explained the court’s reasoning:

Civil rights attorneys already have incentives to encourage their clients to take reasonable settlement offers, because they can only recover fees if their client is the “prevailing party,” something that is not assured if they take the gamble of going to trial, not to mention the additional work and preparation that is required for taking a case to trial. Further, the district court’s rationale assumes that attorneys are violating  their ethical duties, which require the client, not the lawyer, to make all settlement decisions.

The First Circuit sent the case back to the district court, with instructions to ”re-evaluate” the attorney fees.
“I think this is a victory for civil rights plaintiffs,” Ms. Leonard said in an email.  “The First Circuit recognized the important public policy behind the fee shifting statute, which is to encourage competent counsel to litigate civil rights violations.  Any other outcome would certainly have deterred representation.  These cases are difficult, hard fought and risky.  No attorney would take a case like this just for the fees, as the district court suggested.”

Should I hire a Civil Rights Attorney?

If you are a victim of discrimination due to your race, sex, age, religion, ethnicity, physical/mental disability or sexual orientation, you need a civil rights attorney right away. You also need a civil rights attorney if you are discriminated against for associating with or being part of a certain group of people. A civil rights attorney can help you assert your civil rights by taking action against those who violate them. A civil rights lawyer can also defend those who are wrongly accused of violating civil rights. Use the form on this page to find a civil rights attorney that is right for you and your legal situation.

Civil Rights Legislation

The most prominent civil rights legislation since reconstruction is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Decisions of the Supreme Court, at the time, limited Congressional enforcement of the 14th Amendment to state action. Since 1964 the Supreme Court has expanded the reach of the 14th Amendment in some situations to individuals discriminating on their own. Therefore, in order to reach the actions of individuals, Congress, using its power to regulate interstate commerce, enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin" in public establishments that had a connection to interstate commerce or was supported by the state is prohibited.
Public establishments include places of public accommodation (e.g., hotels, motels, trailer parks, restaurants, gas stations, bars, taverns, and other places of entertainment). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent legislation also declared a strong legislative policy against discrimination in public schools and colleges which aided in desegregation. Title VI of the civil rights act prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination where the employer is engaged in interstate commerce. Congress has passed numerous other laws dealing with employment discrimination.

What is a Civil Right?

A civil right is an enforceable right or privilege, which if interfered with by another gives rise to an action for injury. Examples of civil rights are freedom of speech, press, assembly, the right to vote, freedom from involuntary servitude, and the right to equality in public places. Discrimination occurs when the civil rights of an individual are denied or interfered with because of their membership in a particular group or class. Statutes have been enacted to prevent discrimination based on a persons race, sex, religion, age, previous condition of servitude, physical limitation, national origin and in some instances sexual preference.

What is Civil Rights Law?

Civil rights law is the area of law protecting those rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, including the right to due process, equal treatment under the law of all people regarding enjoyment of life, liberty, property, and protection.