http://www.observer.co.uk/crimedebate/story/0,12079,768980,00.html

Called to the bar... with a burning
desire for justice

They defend dissidents and terror suspects - and these
dynamic young lawyers came of age last week with two
landmark victories

Marin Bright
Sunday August 4, 2002
The Observer

A group of barristers met up after work at a pub off London's Gray's Inn
Road last Thursday to celebrate the 'end of term'. Similar gatherings were
taking place all across the Inns of Court, London's legal district, as the
profession prepared for its extraordinary 'long vacation' that lasts until
October. But the group downing beers in the Duke of York had more to
celebrate than most - they had just won a series of landmark cases which
marked them out as the most dynamic group of lawyers working in Britain
today.

Among them was Ben Emmerson, the dashing young advocate and colleague of
Cherie Booth at the fashionable Matrix Chambers. Admirers say that if Colin
Firth's human rights lawyer in the film Bridget Jones's Diary wasn't based
on Emmerson, then it should have been.

Twice in a week Emmerson had given the Government a bloody nose. First he
won the right for 900 prisoners to be released after the European Court
decided that prison governors could no longer add days to a sentence as a
punishment. Then, last Tuesday, he was part of the team that persuaded a
panel of judges that the Government's detention of nine terrorist suspects
arrested after 11 September was unlawful, a devastating blow for David
Blunkett's anti-terrorism legislation.

Keir Starmer, who was made a QC in March, was also there from Doughty
Street Chambers, the powerhouse of the liberal legal establishment.
Starmer famously represented the McLibel Two in a 315-day trial against
the fast food giant. He also acts for renegade MI5 officer David Shayler,
whose trial in October will challenge the very heart of the British
establishment, the Security Service itself.

Celebrating too was Phillippa Kaufman, another Doughty Street lawyer, who
sits with Emmerson on the inquest lawyers panel that helps investigate
deaths in police and prison custody, and is also a respected philosopher.

All under the age of 45 and many already 'Queen's Counsel' - the title given
to the select band of top barristers judged to be the best in their field - the
group is united by a commitment to civil liberties and a willingness to
represent the sort of clients that high-flying barristers once wouldn't have
dirtied their hands with.

Terrorist suspects, transsexuals, protesters - society's dissidents and
outsiders - are their meat and drink. But critics of these new stars of the
civil rights world accuse them of riding the civil liberties gravy train
following introduction of the Human Rights Act and using European and
international legislation to undermine the fabric of Britain's ancient laws.

Although members of the group are known to let their hair down at the Duke
of York from time to time, these young 'silks' are a far cry from the
high-living, champagne-swilling lawyers of old. The ordinariness of their
personal and family lives is in marked contrast to the pyrotechnics of their
court appearances.

This tight network of civil rights barristers, which could also be said to
include two other star QCs from Matrix chambers, Clare Montgomery and
Rabinder Singh, sees itself as the vanguard of a new type of law which
argues about principles and ethics as well as the nitty-gritty of English
case-law. They take their inspiration from an older generation of lawyers
who fought civil liberties cases before it was fashionable to do so: names
such as Louis Blom-Cooper and Geoffrey Robertson.

John Wadham of the civil rights organisation Liberty has instructed many of
the new breed of civil rights lawyers. He said: 'These young lawyers are a
deeply impressive bunch, but the older generation was doing human rights
and civil liberties work when it was much more difficult to do so and judges
were just not interested.'

Edward Fitzgerald QC, who at 48 straddles the two generations and has
worked with most of the players, said it was difficult to overstate the
excitement surrounding the Duke of York group. 'There is a tremendous
ferment of ideas, rather like the French Enlightenment, with a great deal of
interchange of ideas. It is a very stimulating time.'

'There has also been a shift in the attitude of judges, who have become more
cynical about the police and government officials.'

Fitzgerald said his good friend Emmerson was 'an intense and extremely
forceful advocate' who was utterly committed to the cause of civil liberties.
His wife, Anne Shamash, a brilliant lawyer in her own right, is said to
complain that he finds it difficult to relax and is constantly running to the
fax machine, even when on holiday, to check the progress of his cases.

Baroness Kennedy, herself a QC at Doughty Street, said she was deeply
impressed with the new generation: 'All power to their elbow. People like
Ben Emmerson and Rabinder Singh chose to become human rights lawyers
long before it was fashionable and it is heartening that their choice is now
being vindicated.' She said the significance of last week's judgment on the
detainees could have international implications, including in the US where
hundreds of Muslims have been arrested.

Experts are united in saying that Singh's performance before the Special
Immigration Appeals Commission last month was a stunning piece of
advocacy. He argued passionately that the measures in question were
discriminatory because they only applied to foreign nationals. Fitzgerald
said: 'It was a brilliant win. What he said was unanswerable and it was quite
clear the Government was genuinely taken by surprise.'

Singh, a quietly spoken but devastatingly effective barrister, said it was a
great day that took even his client, Liberty, by surprise: 'We cited American
cases, and arguments about equal treatment are central to US constitutional
law. They simply didn't see it coming.'

The son of a poor Indian immigrant, Singh said he was inspired by his
father's passion for justice and was proud to be seen as part of a new wave of
legal talent. 'There is definitely a new generation and that's partly due to the
passage of time, with older people inevitably moving on. But the nature of
legal education has also changed. You can study civil liberties and human
rights law in universities now. Some of the ideas I used in the case of the
detainees I learnt while studying human rights law as part of my masters at
the University of California in Berkeley.

'For lawyers like me, commercial law has no attraction. You can make a lot
of money at it but it's just not interesting.'

If there is a point of difference between the human rights lawyers, it is
whether they should also use their human rights skills to represent the
so-called 'forces of darkness': governments, corporations or, in one case
that continues to cause discomfort in the group, a South American dicta tor.
There are those, such as Emmerson or Fitzgerald, who believe human rights
lawyers should, wherever possible, choose to work for the
under-represented and oppressed.

But Singh believes in the traditional 'cab-rank' system, where barristers
are expected to take whatever job comes along within reason. He has done a
great deal of work for the Government and helped crush the appeal of the two
Palestinians accused of bombing the Israeli embassy in 1994, a favourite
left-wing cause.

Clare Montgomery, the 44-year-old QC who has faced fierce criti cism for
representing Chile's General Pinochet and the intelligence services, said:
'There is an important principle here. Both sides need to be well presented
to resolve any legal dispute properly. The origin of this modern fad was a
period when it was not thought respectable to represent suspected
terrorists. Now it has completely turned around.'

She said she had come to human rights law after beginning her career as a
commercial lawyer. The boom in human rights work, she felt, had been
driven by an explosion in extradition cases concerning global terrorist net
works and white collar crime. She now believes that the argument over what
should happen to the British prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, represented by
her Matrix colleague Nick Blake QC, is set to be one of the most important
tests of human rights.

'I have always found the battle between the individual and the state
completely gripping,' she said.

'Now, at last, we are able to talk about constitutional principles, and because
we have signed up to international treaties it is impossible for judges to
ignore individual rights and liberties.'

Like Singh she feels privileged to number herself among the group of human
rights lawyers. 'I'd like to think that what unites us is that we are
extremely professional, we have integrity and an academic rigour to what
we do. I hope there are signs that the bar is moving away from being a job
for the upper classes making speeches for the lower classes.'

On the evidence of last Tuesday's judgment, the government has a lot to learn
from this collection of fiercely intellectual, radical barristers who are
determined to shake the foundations of our ancient legal system.