THE BRIDGETOWN PROTOCOL REFORM OF JUDICIAL, LEGAL AND PENAL SYSTEMS WORKING GROUP REPORT
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Back to Working Group ReportsPART III - WORKING GROUP REPORTS
Chairperson/Rapporteur: Esther Ekua StanfordINTRODUCTION
PRIORITY AREAS
BARRIERS, CURRENT PROGRAMS & RECOMMENDATIONS
WAY FORWARDGoal of the Working Group
To identify, concretize and enhance the global process of harmonizing our people’s self empowering work being done, or which needs to be done; as well as strengthening viable networking between those already doing, or interested in doing, such work in the sphere of the legal, judicial and penal transformations with respect to Afrikans and Afrikan Descendants all over the world in accordance with a strategic plan of action of the Afrikans and Afrikan Descendants World Conference Against Racism (AAD WCAR).
Introduction
We recognize that the colonial foundation of the current judicial, legal and penal systems is rooted in the historical oppression of Afrikan people, which continues to this day. The situation of the continuing holocaust in which Afrikan people find themselves enslaved within the present global apartheid order of white supremacist racism demands holistic transformation in accordance with the AAD WCAR strategic plan of action. According to Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, “….if we don’t understand white supremacy everything else will serve to confuse us”. Therefore, there is a need to have a definition and acknowledgement of anti-Black racism (white supremacy) within laws, codes, policies and practices, which govern our lives. Also, a process that consults with Afrikan organizations at all levels within the decision making process (local, national & international) is of critical importance.
. Extra judicial killings
. Criminalization and stereotyping of Afrikan people
. The prison industrial complex
. Over representation of Afrikan people detained in mental health institutions
. Some countries do not have jury systems
. Lack of sanctions and enforcement of law (impunity)
. Need for more independent complaints systems
. Need for acknowledgement of anti-Black racism (afriphobia)
. Lack of information on legal rights and responsibilities
. Lack of victim support (resister survivor)
. Role of religion in law enforcement
. Subversion of the law
. Accrued vulnerability of women and children
. Lack of law enforcement and insensitivity in domestic violence cases.
. Being on remand years before trial, especially in Afrika and the Caribbean
. Black deaths in custody
. Disproportionate sentencing, i.e. drug offences
. Abuse of state authorityBARRIERS, CURRENT PROGRAMS & RECOMMENDATIONS
EUROPE
Priority Area: * Inequality within the legal system – civil and criminalBarriers
o Stereotyping and anti-Black racism
o Training
o Lack of Afrikan and Afrikan Descendant staff at all levelsHow these are being addressed
o Stephen Lawrence Inquiry with recommendations
o Police Reform bill
o Black support networks within government departments i.e. National Black Police Association, Society of Black Lawyers etc.
o uBuntu Community Law in Action Program
o Upstandings Critical Legal Literacy project
o Pan-Afrikan Community Advocacy Services
o Campaign for Truth and Justice.
o Criminology in the Millennium Lecture Series
o Justice
o Liberty
o Commission for Racial Equality
o Brain
o Monitoring Projects
o Racial Community Forums
o Police and Community Consultative Groups
o Community race relations training for the judicial, penal and police services
o Funding for Black lawyers and students
o Race Relations amendment Act (race equality schemes)
o Human Rights Act, Article 13
o Holland Post Durban Committee to look at racism nationally
o Trade Unions lobbying and campaigning.Recommendations
o Develop systems of information sharing, e.g. through the Black/Afrikan press and other media, advice centres, Commission for Racial Equality, community groups, community centres, leaflets in plain and clear languageEducation
o Work through organizations like Campaign for Truth and Justice, Northern Complaint Aid Fund
o Implement diversity training
o Establish legal service commissions linking with the Black communities
o Provide training for lawyers and students
o Educate our communities to educate members of parliament and councillors
o Address mental slavery
o Improve the environment of Afrikan people in the criminal justice structures
o Lead by example
o Improve community commitment and responsibilityFunding/Resources
o Coordinate independent fund raising, away from government where possible
o Source funding from governments and, in this process, remind them of their responsibilities and guard against compromising our principles
o Organize fundraising and benefits
o Inspire to community commitment and responsibility to give/donate
o Use the benefits of charity status
o Encourage Afrikan institutions/organizations to share resources
o Source funding from various groups, such as: European Commission, United Nations, Commission for Racial Equality, Legal Services commission, local councils, employers in the field, trade unions
o Use raffles
o Apply membership fees
o Create a Black information resource centre
o Distribute leaflets in clinics, shops, community centres and government buildings
o Lobby leaflet producers to make them more readily available
o Set up information networks for Afrikan peopleStrategies
o Develop awareness programs
o Involve community members to keep our representatives on track
o Involve peer groups to keep our representatives on track
o Support our representatives to reverse isolation
o Establish support groups for Black people working within the legal professionCARIBBEAN
Priority areas:
* Violation of human rights laws and lack of protection of democratic and equal participation
* Abuse of human rights by state authorities (extra-judicial killings)
* Denial of fair treatment within the penal system
* Inability of citizens to secure funding for legal representation (Legal Aid)Recommendations
o Establish a Citizens Tribunal/Forum to undertake independent investigations into suspected cases of abuse of authority
o Review the judicial system and introduction of measures to facilitate the expectations and professional directory of services
o Establish regional standards in relation to penal reforms
o Develop programs to encourage legal students to remain in the Caribbean through internships, funding and scholarshipsBarriers
o Lack of Funding
o Misappropriation of funds
o Abuse of state authorityFunding
o Explore the International Development Bank, British connections, national bodies who fund international projects, i.e. trade unions and community funds, British Commonwealth
o Approach University of West Indies – scholarships and grants
o Approach law firms who could sponsor advocacy and legal literacy programsNORTH AMERICA
Priority area: * Criminalization of Black people and the elimination of the prison industrial complexRecommendations
1. Assess the need for health outreach in the criminal justice systems and communities through the provision of education, direct care and appropriate referrals
o Coordinate outreach in communities and prisons
o Provide direct medical care
o Encourage education
o Provide health care in prisons
2. Gang Prevention & Prison Prevention
o Outreach in community & prisons
o Reclaim our youth, parents and families
o Provide independent education, the responsibility of parents to educate youth, from an Afrikan centred perspective
o Encourage education in law, economics, etc
3. Community based police brutality initiatives
o Establish independent Police Review Boards
4. Preventative programs
o Initiate public education campaigns
o Provide mentoring
o Involve government (accountability on establishment)
o Coordinate peer education (involving those previously in prison)
5. Alternatives to incarceration
o Develop community based programs
o Encourage faith based initiatives (religion)
o Coordinate critical resistance programs
Funding
o Form networks to access government grants, coordinate application process and teach negotiation skills required
o Build independent co-operative funding entities; Afrikan and Afrikan Descendant credit unions
Recommendations
o Develop promotional campaign to encourage more Afrikan and Afrikan Descendant police/judges with proper consciousness
o Create information networks to inform about policies, crimes, dissimulation of information etc
o Further developed research
o Develop leaders and groom potential leaders, especially the youth
o Coordinate NGO participation in UN processes
AFRIKA
Priority area: * Corruption within the penal, legal and judicial system, i.e. police, lawyers, etc
Recommendations
o Immediate Objectives:
§ Develop strategies to raise the minimum salaries of law enforcement officers
§ Establish an independent complaints system, with sanctions
§ Develop programs to educate individuals at all ages and levels of understanding through literature and media campaigns
§ Examine and overhaul recruitment policies to ensure diverse representation; gender, ethnicity, culture and religion.
o Long Term Objectives
§ Lobby governments to allocate a budget for legal aid to enable individuals to challenge the system
§ Ensure specialized skills to be retained within the country, i.e. measures to prevent the current ’brain drain”
§ Formalize an over sight commission for the continent
§ Develop adequate funding possibilities for unemployed or low income families, whilst their children are in full-time education
Barriers
o Adequate funding
o Current government policies
o Lack of transparency
o ‘Power Drunkenness’
o Over population in urban areas.
Generic Strategies
§ Source funding for training of conscious and competent Afrikan advocates, in order to provide culturally
adequate representation to Afrikan people
§ Establish an international database of organizations working in the field of judicial, legal and penal reforms
§ Coordinate networking between organizations present and the continual updating of an international website
§ Establish an international directory of Afrikan lawyers, advocates and practitioners in the criminal and civil justice systems
§ Devise strategies which will improve the quality of the police service, thereby encouraging individuals to enter the profession.
§ Develop advocacy and legal literacy programs
§ Learn to work the system until we are able to change it and redress the imbalance.
Generic Solutions
§ Develop our own research and expertise concerning issues of judicial, legal and penal reforms and how they
relate to, and impact on, Afrikans and Afrikan Descendants
§ Construct and reform new laws, constitutions and systems of governance in accordance with our own self-determined path, which will help us to continue the development, and re-establishment of Afrikan indigenous judicial, legal and penal systems practiced prior to colonialism
WAY FORWARDWe must demand only those measures of reform that can be reasonably argued to be conducive to true transformation. For example, we must demand the inclusion of our own critical perspectives of Pan-Afrikan jurisprudence in local, national and international processes of legal, judicial and penal reform. We must vigilantly guard against those spurious measures that are only designed to refine, tighten and strengthen the oppressive system of white supremacist racism.
Reform can only be meaningful if it opens up space for us to not only unequivocally speak our truth to the power of white supremacy, but also to counteract it with the force of our own community-propelled positive action, energized by our own genuine people’s power in its local, national and international interconnectedness.
Legislative and judicial organs of the state must no longer be the uncontested domain of the law of white supremacy but also become places of grassroots challenges to injustice and implementation of our own concepts and values within community law in action. Legislative, judicial, police and other reforms can not be about recruiting more ‘Black skinned, white masked’ officers who are oblivious to the institutions of white supremacy, but rather about injecting a new type of highly disciplined, courageous and truly Black conscious practitioners into those institutions so that they can challenge racism uncompromisingly from within the system.
Our Memorandum of Understanding
The group endeavours to remain in contact and actively network in our regions to ensure that the strategies are further developed and taken forward. We emphasize the immediate need to:· Develop and maintain a website with updated information on current issues, campaign sand regional activities
in relation to our objectives;
· Investigate sources of funding (national & international) in order to expedite our aims and objectives; and to
· Establish constructive networking links
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World Conference Against Racism 2003. All Rights Reserved.