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Basil Fernando, Director, Asian Human Rights Commission & Asian Legal Resource Centre, Hong Kong
The Asian Human Rights Commission held the fifth
consultation on the Asian Charter for the Rule of Law in
Hong Kong from 20 to 24 April 2009, around the theme of
concerns about the legal profession in Asia.
From the intense discussions among the participants of 16
countries and territories, what became clear is that the struggle
for the rights of lawyers simply to perform their jobs and fight
against impunity is in many places at an extremely critical and
dangerous stage. Those people who have joined the fight and are
faced with considerable difficulties even in their mundane dayto-day activities carry in themselves very deep frustrations and
some suffer from depression. Such feelings affirm the honesty
and dedication of those persons who are engaged in these efforts.
Under these circumstances, one of the first steps towards
arriving at some more enlightened ideas on how to deal with our
problems is to openly admit them and to articulate our
frustrations. Often there is a feeling that to admit difficulties or
even to talk about them is in some sense a betrayal to the cause,
or a sign of weakness. However, when fellow travelers share their
frustrations and do so in an effort to search for common solutions,
we can join together on a path towards greater self-discovery, as
well as greater awareness of what needs to be done to address
the obstacles to justice in our societies.
Hearing one’s own voice articulating inner feelings about the
difficulties we face, one communicates with others and also
oneself on the deeper aspects of the problems that usually we
only consider superficially. The very fact that people gather
together and find space in which to talk is itself liberating.
Associated with opportunities for open speech on matters that
are usually kept inside is the need for documentation to share
the ideas that emerge with others who may not be directly
involved. Proper documentation is another liberating act, hence
this edition of article 2 (‘Concerns about the legal profession in
Asia’, vol. 8, no. 2, June 2009). Sharing of documentation in turn
encourages more dialogue. This is not the type of documentation
that is made for the purpose of proving a case or building evidence
that could one day be presented in a court of law. When in very
difficult situations such as those in which many of us are working
around Asia justice is still a faraway dream, a more important
type of documentation is that which will create opportunities for
people to come to terms with what is happening in their societies,
and create opportunities for at least some sections of those
societies, as well as people abroad, to understand these problems
in greater depth.
The fifth consultation towards an Asian Charter on the Rule
of Law was organized according to this understanding of dialogue
and documentation, and we hope that it will have motivated
participants to undertake similar exercises within their own
countries and communities. It is critical that around the region
we create more opportunities for people who face very difficult
human rights and legal problems to talk things out and then find
ways to document their ideas so as to move towards ways to solve
these problems.
Ultimately, resolving difficult problems depends on political will.
Political will is not a thing that develops in a vacuum. Nor does it
materialize from above, in isolation from what is going on in the
society. Even in the most authoritarian states, ordinary citizens
articulate their problems in large and small ways. We need to
take the trouble to document and disseminate this dialogue if
we wish to create the political will required to deal with the many
difficult problems that we face today throughout the region.
Some participants in the consultation
Posted on 2009-06-22
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