Our First Outing

It’s ironic that Costa Rica say they are protecting the right to life by banning In-Vitro Fertilisation, when IVF seeks to create life’ argued one individual passionately. But now the other side with a sharp riposte: ‘Article 4 of the American Convention [on Human Rights] protects the right to life from conception.’ The arguments went back and forth in our court yesterday (16th December 2015) and Artavia Murillo et al v. Costa Rica was not the only case on the docket.

The judges also heard Curtis Francis Doebbler v. Sudan. Here, the applicants had been relaxing on a beach. Girls had been talking to boys. Some kissing and touching had gone on. But things took a dark turn when the Sudanese authorities showed up, arrested the students and sentenced them to public lashes, as mandated, they said, by Shari’a law. Impassioned, the applicant’s ‘lawyer’ jumped up: ‘Sudan may have these laws but they have signed a Charter saying that no one can be tortured’. But the state’s orator came back, bluntly stating that Sudan is an Islamic country and that ignorance of the law was no excuse. The students should have known.

Finally, the case of S.A.S v. France was mooted before the judges. It concerned the French burqa ban and whether or not it violated religious freedom as enshrined by the European Convention on Human Rights. The applicant’s representative confidently took her place at the ad hoc Bar. Straight to the point, she asserted that the applicant – who accepts she may need to remove her burqa in secure buildings – should have the choice as to whether or not to wear it in general public life. To take that away from her violated her freedom to manifest her beliefs. No, no, no, argued the state representative, the burqa was misogynistic and incompatible with France’s secular nature. It may also make it difficult to provide eye witness testimony in criminal cases, she added.

So, who were these skilled orators, with their nuanced legal arguments? Practised lawyers? Professors? Undergraduate law students?

None of the above. In fact, the arguments paraphrased in the foregoing came from the brilliant and endlessly creative minds of students at Sussex Downs college in Eastbourne. We (Poppy and Ryan of the Your Rights Matter team) hosted our first ever human rights workshop there yesterday and despite it being a wet and windy December afternoon and regardless of the fact that the session was not compulsory, a bunch of enthusiastic students turned up to learn about human rights.

The session began with us giving them a brief overlay of the rights protection systems detailed above. We then split them into three groups: one covering each case. The groups were halved with one side arguing for the applicants and one for the respondent states and after 30 minutes of preparation time they were judged by us in short mock-trials. It was amazing to see how swiftly these college level individuals (a mixture of AS and A2 students, some of whom had never done law or politics before!) grasped the subject matter. Despite some nerves, no one shied away from standing up and arguing for their 'client', regardless of whether or not they agreed with the arguments themselves.

At Your Right's Matter we believe that a broad and varied education is crucial which enables students to not only answer questions, but to ask questions of their own, to think critically and to understand other views and ideas. We were therefore thrilled to see how much everyone enjoyed grappling with the difficult human rights problems in front of them.

Our workshop ended with a short Q and A session about higher education, how to get there, what it entails and what the partying/studying ratio is really like - which seemed to go down very well indeed. Concluding this short post, all that remains to be said is that our team had a wonderful time and the students all told us that they thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. We can’t wait to visit Sussex Downs again and to branch out to new schools and colleges in the new year - thank you to all those who came along and participated!

Post script: and a massive thank you to Luke Browning (law tutor at Sussex Downs) is in order, for hosting us, telling his students to come along and running around to print, give us resources and take snaps during the session.