The worldwide erosion of the rule of law and the persecution of lawyers were central issues discussed at the German Bar Conference this year. In this guest blog, Tana Adkin KC reports from the meeting in Berlin last month.
I was invited by Julia Heise, the former President of the German Bar Association and fellow bâtonnière du monde. It was appropriate that Berlin, at the epicentre of the Cold War, should host this opportunity to discuss the growing concerns about attacks on the rule of law and the persecution of lawyers.
The seminar on the first day focused on lawyers in European democracies facing backsliding on the rule of law and direct threats of prosecution for simply practising their profession to protect it. Lawyers from around the world spoke up.
Julia Heise and Tana Adkin KC
Threats of prosecution
When Rainer Frisch, of Frisch, Martelock and Kirchner, was defending an Iranian refugee facing deportation in Germany he was met with the threat of prosecution in a letter he shared with us. The letter warned him that he would face prosecution if he interfered with the administration of justice. His client had converted to Christianity, but the German government insisted on deportation, despite the fact that converting to Christianity is punishable by death in Iran. Frisch was worried that this form of bullying will affect recruitment to the profession.
UK immigration lawyers were targeted and threatened following the Stockport murders when it was wrongly suggested that the murderer was an immigrant. Tracing the antipathy back to the 2016 Daily Mail headline that judges were ‘Enemies of the People’ we discussed how some of the media and some politicians persistently undermine the rule of law when it suits them, whilst claiming to recognise its importance in underpinning democratic societies.
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