Dorf on Law

It is telling that Asma Jahngir's statement (reproduced below in Anil's latest post ) calls on "representatives of bar associations" around the world to "approach their governments to pressure the government of Pakistan to release all lawyers and judges and immediately provide access to" several prominent lawyers, rather than asking for the assistance of the International Rule of Law Exchange---the international organization that protects lawyers and judges the world over in much the same way as the International Freedom of Expression Exchange does its best to bring pressure on governments and others that limit press freedom by harassing, arresting and otherwise mistreating journalists. Jahngir could not appeal to the International Rule of Law Exchange because there does not appear to be any such organization. There is something called the International Union of Lawyers (Union Internationale des Avocats), but that is, so far as I can tell, an organization...

On Monday, George Bush said that Gen. Musharraf is a "a strong fighter against extremists and radicals." Is this the reason why? Appeal for support to lawyers and judges in Pakistan I am fortunate to be under house arrest while my colleagues are suffering. The Musharaf government has declared martial law to settle scores with lawyers and judges. While the terrorists remain on the loose and continue to occupy more space in Pakistan, senior lawyers are being tortured . The civil society of Pakistan urges bar associations all over the world to mobilize public opinion in favor of the judges and lawyers in Pakistan. A large number of judges of superior courts are under arrest. Thousands of lawyers are imprisoned, beaten and tortured. In particular the cases of Muneer A Malik, Aitzaz Ahsan, Tariq Mahmood and Ali Ahmed Kurd are serious. Muneer A Malik, the former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association and leader of the lawyers’ movement has been shifted to the notorious At...

Why insisting upon elections is not enough UPDATE (11/9/2007): An updated version of this post appears as a column this week for New America Media . ** As the " emergency " extraconstitutional martial law regime of Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf enters its fifth day, more people in the United States have started to react. Most of these reactions -- whether forceful, equivocal, or barely audible -- have emphasized the importance, above all else, of making sure that the elections scheduled for January stay on track. But what happens when Musharraf and his banker-henchman-in-chief, Shaukat Aziz, lift the "emergency" and announce a date for elections, as they invariably will? Will critics then breathe a sigh of relief, celebrate the "restoration of Pakistan's progress towards democracy," and move on? If so, then all of these Western critics will have been hoodwinked, and Musharraf will have achieved a near-complete victory. The purpose of Mush...

It's not just SCHIP. The White House is now opposing other popular domestic spending measures (as reported here ), in what is being described as an effort to reassert his conservative credentials in time for the 2008 election. In the NY Times story linked above, for example, reporter Carl Hulse floats the theory that "Mr. Bush and Republican leaders are taking a harder line on spending out of a belief that voters in 2006 punished them for allowing federal spending to creep upward in the last six years and creating a costly new Medicare drug benefit." That's one theory, I suppose, but here's another (mine): The Medicare drug benefit was moderately popular, earning Republicans at least as many votes from moderate/elderly voters as it cost them with conservative deficit hawks. Bush scores almost no points as a deficit hawk because, in light of the cost of the Iraq war, the domestic programs he wants to cut are far too little too late to appease any serious fisca...

For reasons as yet unclear, Dorf on Law has been acting strangely today. Posts from yesterday and today have been flitting in and out of existence. Because this issue is occurring with comments as well as posts, I suspect that the problem is at the Blogger end of things rather than on the server side. Of course, this post itself may succumb to the same problem, but in case it manages to get to readers, let me say that I'll invest some time in figuring out what's going on tomorrow if the problem persists. And if no one is reading this, it doesn't really matter what I say, does it? Posted by Mike Dorf

The next time someone starts insulting lawyers as hairsplitters who introduce complexity simply to enrich themselves as a class at the expense of their clients, I'll cite the example of Pakistan's lawyers, who have not merely joined the demonstrations against General Musharraf's emergency, but are leading the fight---at considerable and entirely predictable cost to themselves. British imperialism no doubt had its many flaws but one beneficial side effect was the transmission to former colonies (certainly including the U.S.) of a strong sense of the rule of law as a bulwark against tyranny. Notable examples of national leaders on the world historical stage who took their inspiration in part from their training as lawyers are Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. And both Gandhi and Mandela showed that commitment to justice through law was not incompatible with---and in extremis demanded participation in---mass social protest. To be sure, unless some non-lawyers join the lawyer...

In an Op-Ed this morning, John Ashcroft advocates granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally assisted the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program by turning over their customers’ private communications to the government. “Whatever one feels about the underlying intelligence activities or the legal basis on which they were initially established,” he writes, “it would be unfair and contrary to the interests of the United States to allow litigation that tries to hold private telecommunications companies liable for them.” He claims that “[l]ongstanding principles of law hold that an American corporation is entitled to rely on assurances of legality from officials responsible for government activities.” If longstanding principles of law protected the defendants, however, they wouldn’t need retroactive statutory immunity. In fact, government officials generally do not have the power to grant immunity from private actions by misinterpreting the law for the be...

My latest FindLaw column analyzes the First Amendment issues presented by the verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church et al for their offensive display at the funeral of a marine killed in Iraq. As I note in the column, the size of the judgment may be reduced on appeal, but the finding of liability will probably hold up. I received an email today from the editor of Prison News , who pointed me to an article on the Phelps family (the people that mostly comprise the Westboro Baptist Church). It seems that (for shame) many are lawyers and/or work in the Kansas penal system. Go figure. The article can be found here but you need to register and log in to read it. Here's my favorite bit: As one writer put it, the church members also rejoice in the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami that devastated Asia two years ago, and AIDS. They believe God hates Santa, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, soldiers, me, and if I had to guess, they probably believe that God hates you. Appar...

This is a follow-up on Anil's excellent post . I write to note how plain it seems that the I-had-to-declare-martial-law-to-combat-Islamist-terrorists justification for Pervez Musharraf's emergency declaration is primarily aimed at an American audience. If they are paying attention, even American neocons can see that the declaration will likely weaken Musharraf's ability to fight the Islamists. A clear-eyed analysis in The Weekly Standard concludes: The declaration of a state of emergency is one of the worst possible moves Musharraf could have made to address the problem of the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda. He has alienated his potential allies, turned away Benazir Bhutto, and united disparate elements of the opposition. Secular parties and Islamists will now share a single voice in opposition to his blatant disregard for the rule of law, and the emphasis of the Pakistani security forces will shift from combating the Taliban to maintaining order in an increasingly t...

It looks like what has been feared since the spring has actually happened. Echoing the trigger that led to Indira Gandhi's imposition of emergency in India more than thirty years ago, reports are emphasizing that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's imposition of a state of " emergency plus " in Pakistan has come on the eve of the Pakistan Supreme Court's decision concerning his eligibility to be elected as President. But the Court has been active in other ways this week that have undoubtedly made Musharraf uncomfortable, most notably its strong signal that it regarded former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's rendition to Saudi Arabia to be unlawful and possibly in contempt of its earlier order permitting his return. "[W]e would like to emphasise that the judgment passed in Nawaz Sharif's case is still holding the field and required to be implemented in letter and spirit," noted Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry , and the Court's decisi...