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  • jointrefugeeaction
    • Nov 21, 2021
    • 5 min read

Book your place at the next JRAN Forum

Updated: Dec 2, 2021

Responses to the Afghan Refugee Crisis


Tuesday 7th December 2021, 5pm - 8pm, Zoom

An online forum with those working with and for Afghan refugees, followed by a Keynote address with leading legal professionals.


Key Details

Timing:

  • Forum presentations and workshops: 5pm - 6.45pm

  • Keynote address: 7pm - 8pm

Where: Online, Zoom

Cost: Free

Booking options: Choose your ticket option for the Forum & Keynote, or both.


Register here to attend

 

Keynote address: Judges, Laywers and Afghan Refugees

"Human suffering everywhere concerns men and women everywhere" - Elie Wiesel


Overview: We are honoured to have Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, and Professor Sara Chandler QC (Hon), as our keynote speakers, together with Judge Dennis Davis, chairing a discussion on the situation for Afghan judges and lawyers at threat of persecution and seeking sanctuary in the UK and Europe. We are very grateful that one of the Afghan Judges who has been rescued has agreed to speak at this session - Judge Fawzia. Background: Through the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) team, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, has been working with international and domestic partners to provide Afghan female judges, at risk of violence, safe housing, safe transport, and evacuation from Afghanistan to a safe country. By the end of October 2021, 79 women judges, lawyers, journalists and other human rights defenders, and their family members (over 370 people) were evacuated from Afghanistan to Greece.

Professor Sara Chandler is one the Law Society members offering to host, mentor and generally welcome Afghan legal professionals into the legal community in the UK. She is also a member of the FBE Human Rights Commission and has a vast knowledge on lawyers at risk in various jurisdictions. At the last FBE Congress and General Assembly in September the FBE passed resolutions on Afghanistan, Belarus, Colombia, Turkey, and refugees on the border of Belarus-Latvia Belarus-Lithuania, and Belarus-Poland.


Judge Fawzia from Afghanistan held the position of the Head of the Court of Appeals of the Court of Violence Against Women. This session will be chaired by Judge Dennis Davis, one of South Africa's most respected legal minds. He was appointed to a personal chair of Commercial Law in 1989, in 1998 he became a Judge of the High Court, and the President of the Competition Appeal Court in 2000. Since his appointment to the Bench, he has continued to teach constitutional law and tax law at the University of Cape Town where he is an Hon. Professor of law.



 

Forum agenda:


Session 1: Community responses: How are charities, local authorities and schools responding and what challenges are they facing?

Session 2: Emotional wellbeing and mental health responses: Meeting the needs of Afghan refugees


Drawing on their work and first-hand experiences,Refugee Trauma Initiative will look at the need, challenges and solutions to help meet the mental health needs of Afghan refugees. Speakers:

  • Gabriella Brent, Head of Programmes and Clinical Lead, Refugee Trauma Intitiative

  • Jawed Taiman, film maker and programmes manager for pyscho-social projects in Afghanistan

Session 3: Breakout room discussions:

  • In smaller groups, participants will have an opportunity to discuss their current challenges, needs, and what joint actions can be taken.


Interested to attend?


Register here


Any questions about the event? Email: jointrefugeeactionnetwork@gmail.com


We look forward to seeing you soon - online!

 

Keynote speakers


Baroness Helena Kennedy QC is one of Britain's most distinguished lawyers. She has spent her professional life giving voice to those who have least power within the system, championing civil liberties and promoting human rights. She has conducted many prominent cases of terrorism, official secrets and homicide.


Helena is the founding force behind the establishment of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford. In 1997, she was elevated to the House of Lords where she is a Labour peer. She has published a number of books including two on how the justice system is failing women, and has written and broadcasted on many issues over the years.


Currently, she has taken on the role of Director to the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. She directs the Institute’s work upholding the rule of law and human rights globally.

 

Judge Fawzia from Afghanistan,held the position of the Head of the Court of Appeals of the Court of Violence Against Women.

 

Professor Sara Chandler QC (Hon) is a solicitor and Professor of Clinical Legal Education and works in the Legal Advice Clinic of the London South Bank University where she trains and supervises law students to give free legal advice and assistance to members of the public.

Her route to becoming a solicitor was after fighting for the human rights of political prisoners in Chile, and then working with the refugees who arrived from Chile after the military coup of General Pinochet in September 1973. She worked for 10 years as a Law Centre welfare rights caseworker and tribunal representative, and after studying law in evening classes, qualified as a solicitor in 1995. With a strong commitment to human rights, equality and the representation of others, she was elected President of South London Law Society in 2002 and President of the Westminster & Holborn Law Society in 2006. She was elected to represent voluntary sector solicitors on the Council of the Law Society of England & Wales in 2002, and chaired the Law Society’s Human Rights Committee (2011-2014) and the Housing Law Committee (2006-2010.

In 2018 she was elected Chair of the Law Society’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She was invited to participate in the Federation of European Bar Associations (www.fbe.org) in 2006, and became President of the Human Rights Commission in 2008. The Federation was an organisation with all male platforms in congresses, and all the representatives were men. Then in 2015 she was elected as the first woman ever to the Presidency of the FBE as the 2nd Vice President. She became President in 2017, the year that the FBE celebrated 25 years as a Federation. It was a significant first, and following that, the Presidency has two female lawyers who were Presidents in 2019, and 2020. The fourth female President will take office in 2023.

In 2008 Sara was a founder member of the Colombia Caravana, an international delegation of lawyers which monitors human rights in Colombia and supports lawyers at risk. The Caravana has been visiting Colombia every two years since then, except in 2020 because of the pandemic.

In 2016, Sara was honoured for her work in pro bono, human rights and pioneering clinical legal education, with then title of Honorary Queen’s Counsel.

 

Judge Dennis Davis. Educated at Herzlia School and Universities of Cape Town and Cambridge. He was Judge of the High Court, Cape Town (since 1998), member of Labour Appeal Court from 2000 and Judge President, Competition Appeal Court from 2000 and retired in December 2020.


Judge Dennis has taught since elevation to Bench in 1998 as Hon Professor at the University of Cape Town in the fields of tax, constitutional law, competition law and legal theory. He has been visiting professor at Harvard, New York niversity, Georgetown, Brown and Melbourne Universities At present he is teaching tax, in addition, on LLM Course at UWC and competition law at WITS.

Author of 11 books, the latest being Lawfare in South Africa (co-written with Michelle Leroux). Editorial board of the Taxpayer journal an member of Katz Commission into the Tax Structure of South Africa, appointed by President Mandela


Presently Judge Dennis is chair of the Davis Tax Committee into the Tax System and was on the drafting team of both the Competition Act of 1998 and the Companies Act 2008.


Concerned Manchester United supporter.


Married to Claudette with two children Liat and Joshua.

 


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