Saturday, November 10, 2007

A good start

Quite awe-inspiring, wasn't it - seeing all those lawyers out on the streets in Pakistan, getting their heads bashed for defending their constitution. Lawyers getting tear-gassed, lawyers throwing rocks, lawyers ... scuffling. Almost made me feel bad about all the lawyer jokes. After all, wasn't Gandhi a lawyer?...Hello, what's this?...
"Gasps broke out in a U.S. federal appeals court Friday as a U.S.government lawyer spoke of Maher Arar's "unequivocal membership of al-Qaida."
Right. OK, what do you call a thousand and one lawyers in chains at the bottom of the ocean?

5 comments:

West End Bob said...

Tell us, Alison, tell us, please . . . .

RossK said...

I also found the following interesting in the extreme:

"CCR volunteer attorney David Cole argued Arar had been denied U.S. constitutional rights even foreigners should expect on U.S. soil - including the right to appeal his deportation order and the right not to be sent to a place where he'd be tortured and arbitrarily detained.

But the government team said the constitution couldn't be extended to a person who hadn't yet been admitted into the United States by immigration authorities - as was Arar's case."


In other words rendition is not rendition if you're not 'officially' there to be disappeared.

Sheesh.

.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Ross, wasn't that creepy?

Different source, different take :
"Former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft's defence lawyer called Canadian Maher Arar "clearly and unequivocally a member of Al Qaeda" yesterday – prompting guffaws from hundreds in a packed courtroom, including three incredulous judges.

"We'll make believe he's a member of Al Qaeda. That's a shocking statement for you to start with," said Judge Robert Sack, of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, as he scolded Dennis Barghaan, a lawyer representing Ashcroft."

Anonymous said...

I only just saw this, Alison, and I am rigid with anger. I've been trying to think of how to talk about that oppressive, increasingly oppressive note in U.S. law whereby all humans who aren't U.S. citizens are aliens. Good for the Code Pinkers for arguing that point as well. God, but this is depressing.

Anonymous said...

And a PS: Do you know, Alison, whether courtroom presentations continue in this case? Or was that just a one-day presentation of everything and now we wait for the judges?

Parochial paranoid idiots, mutter mutter ...

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