From Mad in Norway: There is much one can do to change the conditions of life, for oneself and others. Some methods can bring big gains. We can organize ourselves and carry out interest-based political work. We can become politicians. We can use the media. We can take to the streets. We can try to change the legislation. We can make use of the existing legislation – national and supranational – and try to win in the legal system.
Read the English translation here, or the original Norwegian here.
Interesting.
I note the International Commission of Jurists writes on their website that in Tajikistan;
“According to reports, lawyers are reluctant to defend people arrested and charged in connection with the protests for fear of retaliation, including as a result of spurious disciplinary actions against them. The ICJ is also concerned at reports that lawyers are being warned not to be too zealous in their legal representation of their clients.”
Sounds very much like the way lawyers are afraid to represent their ‘clients’ on the allegations put regarding their mental health in Australia. ‘Spiked’ with date rape drugs, and then snatched from your bed by police with no reasonable grounds, then interrogated by public officers and police before being medically assessed and not informed you had been ‘spiked’ with date rape drugs,……. and when you approach a lawyer to provide you with ‘advice’ regarding your rights, all you get is thrown under a bus.
Well, the State did go to the trouble of ensuring that the ‘legal representatives’ did not obtain the documents they had a right to access (lets not be too zealous in asking for what they have a right to examine to protect human rights…. that is, unredacted documents showing the offending), and provided them instead with an “edited” version of reality. I feel fairly sure that the threats and intimidation used against my family and other witnesses, was also applied to the ‘legal representatives’ to ensure that they did NOT pursue the matters, and instead pretended to make a complaint to the relevant authority (Office of the Chief Psychiatrist), and then forged a response from said authorities to ensure that the complaint regarding human rights abuses went nowhere. How vicious to gaslight a victim of torture with such a letter forged by your own legal representative?
A ‘flag’ placed on the victim by Police ensuring that any attempt to complain would result in a ‘referral’ for ‘treatment’ by the very people who had violated my human rights. I can’t help but wonder if they do the same for people complaining about the mafia, that is, call the criminals and let them know there is a problem and to come pick up the complainant before they look at the documented proof.
Was the Law Centre ‘coerced’ into acting in such a manner? Or were they willing participants in the attempt to pervert the course of justice for an increase in their funding from the State? It would be a great way to ensure that your human rights record was maintained as ‘good standing’ and enable the use of torture methods which could then be concealed as being ‘treatment’ for fabricated ‘illnesses’, and covered up as “inherent in or incidental to lawful sanction” (Article 1 of the Convention against the use of Torture). Amazing what can be achieved with some document “editing”, and lawyers who look the other way while the State resolves it’s problems with a ‘chemical kosh’.
I also note it is a known fact that citizens in Australia can be denied access to legal representation, though any comment regarding this fact is avoided by this International Commission of Jurists. In fact, the actions being taken seem coincide with skin color, countries such as Australia where human rights are being violated on a massive scale ignored……. for the right to ‘fundraise’ perhaps?
Throwing people whose human rights have been violated under the bus by pro bono lawyers a means to ensure your financial stability in this country.
Care to take a look?
I thought not.
Report comment
“At present, defendants in dozens of cases are without any legal representation despite the fact that many among them face long-term prison sentences if they are convicted.”
From the same article re Tajikistan.
Consider the situation with mental health ‘treatments’ being administered by force when the ‘defendant’ (how can you defend an allegation of ‘false consciousness’ if made by a psychiatrist?) has NO EFFECTIVE legal representation? All well and good if someone with a law degree (and a bill the size of a mortgage to pay for the ‘education’) is appointed to the ‘defendant’, but not a lot of good when that legal representative is using the ‘confidentiality agreements’ to conspire with the State to conceal the human rights abuses.
But who is going to know? Only the lawyer and the State, and both parties are going to keep their mouths shut right? And the ‘victim’ (call them client if you will) is in many cases in a drugged stupor so highly unlikely to be able to figure out what has been done behind their backs.
Frantz Fanon writes;
“We can cite in the same way the case of psychiatrists who were prime movers in ‘Presence francaise’ who when they were told off to give an expert opinion on a prisoner had the habit from the very first of proclaiming their great friendship with the defending lawyer, and of assuring the prisoner that the two of them (the barrister and the psychiatrist) would get him out of there. All the prisoners who had the benefit of expert opinions were guillotined. These psychiatrists boasted in front of us of their elegant method of overcoming ‘resistance'”
Fanon even describing the method used to have the ‘defendant’ ‘medicated’ (consensually, as opposed to the covert methods employed in my instance ie ‘drink spiked’) via the exploitation of trust.
Lawyer X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Gobbo
I don’t know that I would use the term “elegant”, though like the addition of Noble to Lie, it does tend to soften what is actually being described. A “civilian death” becomes “collateral damage”. Think you’ve got a right to privacy/confidentiality? Think again.
Report comment