Transcript: Equal under the Law: What does Justice Look Like? (Pt 3)

Host: Jen Ang

Davie Donaldson

“..but at the very baseline of all of this is the fact that everybody in Scotland should be allowed to live respectfully and in a dignified way, right?

And for gypsy travellers, that means we want to experience our culture, our indigenous culture that’s been passed down by our ancestors for generation after generation. We want to ensure that our children and the next generation get to hear the stories and songs which link us to the landscape.”

Jen Ang

Hello and welcome to a special series of three podcasts – part of our Equal Under the Law? Series – which explores three big questions about the complex relationship between the law and social justice, through interviews with some of Scotland’s most inspiring and impactful activists campaigning today.

Over the past few months, we have interviewed 11 guests for the Lawmanity podcast, who work across a range of social justice issues, including: LGBT+ rights, racial justice, migrants rights, Scottish travellers rights, disability justice, and the rights of women and girl survivors.

We asked each of our guests three big questions, because we wanted to understand what their personal experiences – whether drawn from just a few years’ of campaigning, or sometimes, over as many as four decades of activism – told them about the relationship between law and justice.

Jen Ang

Today, we’re going to look the answers we got to our final question – and it’s a big one!

What does justice look like for you, or for your community?

Heather Fisken, Chief Executive Officer of Inclusion Scotland, a disabled peoples’ organisation (DPO) – opened by pointing out how we will know that we have truly achieved justice:

Heather Fisken

Well, I suppose that goes to justice, achieve justice in practice. When it’s happening, we wouldn’t have a need for justice because would be no injustice.

Sorry, I’m not lawyer, so that’s the kind of thing I would say.

Jen Ang

And Heather goes onto describe justice for disabled people:

Heather Fisken

So justice would look like ready availability of support, and a willingness to see the law as a route that is accessible, attainable, appropriate, when it is – and something that’s for you, it’s for everybody.

Jen Ang

Tressa Burke, Chief Executive Officer of Glasgow Disability Alliance, expands this into a compelling vision of what justice looks like for disabled people across Scotland, for her and her colleagues

Tressa Burke

So, I’ll take it from a broader perspective first. So social justice for disabled people, and if they were having all their legal rights realised and fulfilled, would be about having access to a meaningful life and a life of purpose and a life of choices.

It would be about participation. It would be about being included in their communities and their families in wider society. It would be about having a job, a job that pays well, a job where the employer knows what access to work is, the scheme itself, the programme of support, but also what access in the workplace means.

It would be about disabled people not living in abject and deep and long-term poverty. It would be about disabled people you know accessing the health and social care services that they need.

So you know in terms of social justice, it would be all of those things: fairness, freedom, having dignity, having choices, and the same choices as non-disabled people take for granted.

So when we are talking about choices like that, Sometimes disabled people aren’t able to choose when they get up, what they wear, if they wear anything, when they have a shower, if they have a shower. We’re frequently told about disabled people being told that they’re only entitled to so many showers a week, or a month. I’ve got disabled people who lost their social care packages at the outset of lockdown when 1,884 packages were cut by Glasgow City Council and other local authorities around Scotland, but that’s the figure they themselves gave to the BBC in April 2020. And they haven’t all been reinstated, and many not reinstated at all, and all of them requiring new assessments and people being told: “You coped then, how can you not cope now?”

So, I mean, these are the types of, you know, breaches to human rights that we’re talking about.

I think for disabled people to have justice, both legally and in in that wider fairness and social justice way, not only would they have those things, but if they didn’t have them, there would be better complaint systems.

They would be transparent. They would be independent before you even got to the legal situation. And then, of course, you would be able to access the legal system. You would know the lawyers to go to because it wouldn’t just be one or two that might be good because they’re good people or, you know, somebody that’s married to a disabled person or because we do have examples of that. …

You know, and that’s how desperate things can be. So it would be much more readily available access and it would be affordable because people would be able to access it through legal aid.

But hopefully things would be better than needing to take it to the legal route because you would be able to have your complaints or your issues resolved at an earlier stage and that sense of fairness and freedom and would be observed and realised.

I think you know it’s not to be ignored how difficult things are for local authorities. But when people in Glasgow are now referring to feeling as brutalised by social work and social work assessments and how they are treated, not in every case by any means.

So it local authorities are struggling for sure. And local government funding is definitely an issue. But it is about choices. And disability is a political and a social and economic choice. And disabled people need to be prioritised. So I know that’s a long-winded answer, but these are the ways that disabled people’s lives would look if they were, you know, having their rights and their freedoms observed and realised, and we would have access to that redress, which at this point in time we just don’t have.

Jen Ang

As for how to get there, Pheona Matovu, Founding Director of Radiant & Brighter who also works with racialised and migrant families, believes it is crucial that the people who are impacted by policies are brought to the table, to help design our future legal system.

Pheona Matovu

That’s a big question, very big question. I couldn’t possibly say that I know. What I can say is that I know how that could be achieved.

And even then, maybe I think I know, but I think for it to look how we want it to look, it requires engagement for my community, for the communities that I work with, for the local communities I engage with, people who are affected by poverty, people are affected by migration, people are affected…

When you think, for example, about migration, right? People in these Western countries who can travel to every part of the world do not actually stop to think that they can travel to every part of the world, many times.

There is sometimes an assumption that the immigration law works for everybody the same way. But I know – as a black woman who had to come from Africa – I understand that the hoops that you have to jump through to even just go and pay an education, for an education even that, is significantly, .. it takes everything out of you. It takes everything out of your family.

And they can choose to say, no, you are not coming. And guess what? Your money is lost. And that’s not just a little bit of money. That’s thousands of money usually.

And so I think we need to redesign in a way that we are engaging everybody, in a way that is healthy and dignified for everybody.

And I don’t think that that’s happening. So I think we need to consider bringing other people to the table, perhaps even those people being the core elements and the core designers of what we are looking at, particularly if it is going to affect them the most.

Jen Ang

And Satwat Rehman, Founding Director of One Parent Families Scotland, agrees – explaining what this looks like for single parent families:

Satwat Rehman

Okay, I want to start small, then build big. I think dignity, fairness and equity.

Do you know if people can actually experience those things in the single parent community, not just in the law, but also the fact that what’s in law can drive how society behaves, you’d begin to see the beginnings of justice, alright?

Because if you have that, if you have equity and justice as the cornerstones, then and you build up from there, you should be actively designing poverty out of your systems, alright?

You should be actively designing sort of things I’ve spoken about in education for families, it would be like the law would recognise that there is more than one type of family and they’re all equally valid.

They’re all equally important, but actually they require different things, and that should be the cornerstone for me.

Over and above, that it would be great if we had accessible, responsive legal systems that protect our rights without making us jump through hoops. That would be great.

Yes, a voice in actually shaping policies and understanding what the laws are behind those policies and how you can influence them as they’re being designed and not feel excluded from them because of the language and the process, would be really important.

Jen Ang

Talat Yaqoob, political commentator, activist and co-Chair of the National Advisory Council for Women and Girls (NACWG) tackles this question from a different angle, the perspective of what making law just could look like.

Talat Yaqoob

Wow. Okay, so what does law as injustice look like for the community I do? You know what I have to say that I think if, if we can use law as a way to redistribute power, that would be justice.

That’s not, that’s not the way in which we think about law and write law. A lot of law is written as in a reactionary way. An issue has occurred, a law is required. This is what will be done in the future, and it is focused deeply on criminalisation. It’s focused on and I know that sounds like of course it is, but actually no the thinking around it about the realisation of rights and law as a tool to redistribute power, to create accountability. That is law that creates justice. That’s law that people can have more trust in, you know.

So if we think about things like, we’re in Scotland, the acts that we pass, the law that we implement, actually, regardless of whether it’s Scotland, UK, any nation, actually, if we’re we write law that centres the redistribution of power that centres the ability for accountability to be closer to people. That’s transformative. That’s transformative justice, in my in my view, that is social justice being realised to the law.

And for me, it’s about looking at the way in which law is written and the rationale with which new laws are created, the mindset behind that is what needs to change.

And if that can be more about redistribution, that can be more about transformation and social justice, in which laws we choose to prioritise, and the mindset behind them. I think, I think that would, that could, that could change the face of society in a radically short time.

And actually, it would make law and law making an accessible feature of society. But it’s about the mindset behind why law is created and what law is for, if we could do more about that, if we could do more to challenge that, that it doesn’t need to be this traditional, archaic view of what law is and why law exists, and that law is to pursue the criminalisation of society or the…or for a hierarchy to come and protect society rather than enabling the protection of itself. I think that would be transformative.

Jen Ang

Pinar Aksu, migrant rights activist, tells us that justice for the community she works with – migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees – looks like being treated equally, with humanity and dignity.

Pinar Aksu

For me is, I guess, justice within the migration – especially when you look at how there are so many violent policies being implemented on people – is for people to just live a normal life.

I would say, for me, that would be justice for people to just be treated as a human being and to live a normal life where they don’t have to go through many hurdles to prove themselves of who they are, where they don’t have to continuously go to give evidence at the Home Office, or where they don’t have to continuously fight for their rights within society and live with long term difference that’s been created in communities.

Yeah, I think just being treated as human being and to have a normal life, that, for me, would be justice and also to seen as equal. I think that’s the most important thing.

Jen Ang

For Davie Donaldson, Travellers rights activist, justice for his community looks like achieving equality and dignitiy in practice, but also recognition of the rights and validity of the traveller culture and way of life.

Davie Donaldson

Yeah, and it’s a question that I ask myself every time I visit a camp or every time that I’m speaking to someone who’s just experienced hate crime or someone who is terrified of losing their kids to social services and just doesn’t know how to how to go about even challenging decisions, right?

And because of that, I think justice… is something which is experienced on a really individual level. Justice is something that really relies upon former experience. It relies upon an acknowledgement of past trauma, both collective and individual.

But it also recognises that everyone has a right to live in a dignified and respected way, right? And that’s where our justice system falls short, right?

Let’s pull it right back. I mean, I’m really keen to talk about legal arguments and legal frameworks, but at the very baseline of all of this is the fact that everybody in Scotland should be allowed to live respectfully and in a dignified way, right?

It’s about knowing where you come from, learning your language, having the ability to come together as a community and experience your own sense of identity and your own sense belonging.

Currently, the justice system in Scotland is a barrier to all of that. Now, how justice would look, to paint a picture, I imagine, would be a gypsy traveller family would be able to travel unimpeded to their ancestral stopping places.

There would be significant and sustained support for gypsy travellers travelling and shifting, is our word for that, but shifting around the country. Basic support, access to basic sanitation, access to running water, access to refuse collection in bins, toilets.

You know, really basic human needs should be met in a just society. We should recognise and respect that there are very few nomadic communities left in the world, particularly in the Western world.

And so having a nomadic community in Scotland, like the gypsy travellers, is something that should be celebrated, it shouldn’t be impeded, right? I mean, living in a nomadic way, having a particular unique relationship to the landscape and the oral heritage of the land, is something that we should all want to celebrate, whether or not we’re gypsy travellers.

And to be able to travel and not worry about eviction, not have that constant stress, that constant feeling of surveillance every single time you move, knowing that local settled communities will respect your right to be there and will support you to be there in a safe and dignified manner.

You know, they won’t expect you to have to remove all of your rubbish and travel from place to place with these cartloads of rubbish because you can’t access a council recycling facility. Because if you burn the rubbish, you you’ll get charged because you aren’t provided any bins.

You know, they don’t expect you to have the toilet behind a hedge because they won’t provide you toilets or they’ll lock the public toilets you don’t get to access them, or they’ll refuse to allow you access to toilets in a local shop.

Dignity, you know, that’s what the justice system should look like. And I think if we move to a place where there are legal protections on the right for gypsy travellers to travel, it won’t only positively impact the gypsy traveller community, but it’ll positively impact the settled community as well, because it’ll allow that travelling to be done in a safer, and more community cohesive way.

Jen Ang

And to conclude this podcast today, here’s a reflection from Amanda Amaeshi, an activist with the Young Women’s Movement and a former law student at the University College, London (UCL), who speaks to what justice looks like from the perspective of someone aspiring to activism from within the legal system.

Amanda Amaeshi

Justice looks like a legal system, a political system that’s designed by women for like, the people that it aims to serve – especially those who are like most who are currently most vulnerable, most marginalised and furthest away from this power.

And it’s not just about like abstract legal principles or which are in legislations or in courtroom decisions, but it’s really about whether the people at the sharpest edges of injustice feel seen, heard and protected, like the example of like the clients from earlier, where they felt heard and empowered in regards to like their case.

And it’s really important that like justice has to be intersectional, has to be collective, it has to be rooted in empathy. And it’s really important that these don’t just become buzzwords like, they’re really like, essential core principles, and there has to be a commitment to listen, listening to communities, rather than just like, prescribing solutions based on like, based solely on like, labels that like might be like, put on them by society.

And I think especially like the idea of, like, empathy and humanity are really central to this vision. I feel like, throughout, throughout my law degree, like, sometimes it’s kind of, here’s what you have to focus on these very like intellectually see, like, quote, unquote, intellectually serious kind of ideas like rationality.

But I think throughout, like the three years, especially in the modules that I’ve taken in final year, like, it’s really helped me understand, like, this idea of, like empathy kind of is transformative, and it is as intellectually serious as, like, any other idea, and it’s a rigorous, necessary foundation for like legal for legal thinking and legal practice as well.

Another thing a part of like justice is that, something I see right now is that, like too often, like legal systems are shaped like by fear, and I’m thinking about like around the world, like the rollback of rights under pressure from like far right movement, and how, as a result, like in Scotland, in the UK, perhaps like laws or policies are becoming a bit weaker to kind of like in response to that.

But Justice has to be like, and also as well about like, issues of like equality and justice can easily be sidelined in terms of, like, self interested, like, party politics, um, but justice has to be braver than that.

It has to put people in their dignity at the centre of the conversation. It can’t just be like, moved aside because, like, it’s become politically inconvenient, like it should always be at the core of what anybody’s doing.

And as I’ve kind of already alluded to, like, I don’t think that law alone can carry this burden of like, striving for justice. It is definitely an important part, but I think justice requires more than just legal reform. It needs like, moral imagination, and sustained, inclusive activism.

And so law is a tool that must be wielded alongside, like storytelling, organising, mutual aid, like education, care, like all of these other kind of aspects, a lot of it comes from, like the community, and I think that’s how real change and real justice happens.

Jen Ang

And that concludes today’s episode, in which a number of prominent Scottish activists sat down to talk to us about what justice looks like for them, and for their communities, under the law. Some big ideas and inspiring visions here – which I hoped sparked some curious thinking on your part, the listener.

What does it mean if we hold a vision of justice that is separate to the law and the legal system as we know today? What is the impact for those who are excluded? And what about for the rest of us? Does the answer to bridging this gap lie within the law, or outside of it?

Big questions, and I’d love to hear what you, our listeners, make of it all, and indeed of this special three-part episode on equality under the law.

Meanwhile, a very big thank you to Heather Fisken, Tressa Burke, Pheona Matovu, Satwat Rehman, Talat Yaqoob, Pinar Aksu, Davie Donaldson and Amanda Amaeshi for their contributions to today’s episode.

And thanks so much to you, the listener for tuning into our Lawmanity podcast and our special series on Equality Under the Law in Scotland.

If you loved this podcast, please do hit the subscribe buttons, and also like and share our episodes with friends and colleagues who might enjoy learning a little bit about how law really works in practice, and how it can be used to make the world a better, brighter place.

Our Equality Under the Law series has been generously support by a grant from the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, hosted by the London School of Economics. The Lawmanity podcast is co-produced by me, your host, Jen Ang and by the brilliant and talented Natalia Uribe. And the music you’ve been listening to is “Always on the Move” by Musicians in Exile, a Glasgow-based music project led by people seeking refuge in Scotland.

Thanks so much for tuning in today, we hope you enjoyed listening, and see you next time!