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Schona Jolly QC Profile picture
Schona Jolly QC
Barrister @CloistersLaw (equality, humanrights, international, employment), Visiting Prof @GoldsmithsLaw, Ex BHRC Chair, Writer, Flâneuse, Opinions mine.
LittleGravitas — 🇪🇺 💚 💙 #FBPE Profile picture Chris🌟 😷 #TakeBackBritain #RejoinEU #FBPE💙 Profile picture Jay Jernigan Profile picture M 3.5% 💙 RightToProtest #FBPA #FBPE #GTTO #RiseUp Profile picture Jeffrey Rubinoff Profile picture 12 added to My Authors
Dec 29, 2021
No pretence, no disguise left. Hong King’s National Security Law is being used as a tool to silence expression, crush dissent. One of HK’s most senior barristers is arrested again, as part of another crackdown, this time on @StandNewsHK where she was formerly a board member. Nothing to see here. Only Hong Kong’s second most senior politician trampling over a free press, protected under Hong Kong’s Basic Law by the ICCPR, without qualms.

The #NSL - “a coup dressed up in statute.”
Read 9 tweets
Dec 20, 2021
#Egypt BHRC considers the continued prosecution & detention of activist @alaa, human rights lawyer Mohammed El Baqer & blogger Mohamed Oxygen are emblematic of the profound rule of law crisis.

Here is Laila Soueif in the @nytimes y’day on her jailed son.

Verdicts today. We @BarHumanRights stand w/ the legal community & in solidarity with human rights lawyer Mohammed El Baqer, founder of Adalah Centre for Rights & Freedoms, as he awaits a verdict today in Egypt’s security court, on baseless charges. His client, @alaa & Oxygen should all be freed.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 14, 2021
There is so much political chaos & distraction that we often don’t see the detail of what govt does.

The promised warm welcome to Afghans has not materialised, the Afghan resettlement scheme is still not open, & today govt has made it harder for Afghans to seek safety here. This leaves Afghan refugees at increased risk & facing harsh consequences & criminalisation under the govt’s #BordersBill.

Johnson promised:We will never forget the brave sacrifice made by Afghans who chose to work with us, at great risk to themselves.

This 🧵gives more detail.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 14, 2021
Dominic Raab’s long campaign against the Human Rights Act takes shape in a cynical attempt to water down rights protections, including for some of the most vulnerable in our society, under the nationalist guise of reframing arguments about what is ‘quintessentially British’. A 🧵 2. Although i need to read the details of the proposals, there are multiple alarm bells in this piece by a sitting Justice Secretary. It is hard to square any ‘common sense’ justification with the severe & regressive bills on rights before Parliament.
Read 23 tweets
Dec 13, 2021
“While the whole country is still compulsively debating whether, when, & how often its Prime Minister has lied and cheated…this government is hammering away at the very foundations of what Britain once stood for more than any other country: liberal democracy.” @annettedittert We have had far too little focused debate on the detail of draconian legislation put forward by govt, ramming it through Parliament with a huge majority & little scrutiny. Protest rights, citizenship, electoral ID, refugees & aconstant chipping away at the separation of powers.
Read 5 tweets
Dec 9, 2021
Following Geoffrey Nice QC as he delivers the judgment of the @TribunalUyghur on #Xinjiang.

Delivery Of Uyghur Tribunal Judgment (ENGLISH) It is chilling, difficult and powerful to listen to this judgment.

I am not live tweeting because I want to listen to every word. The summary judgment will be available shortly on the homepage: uyghurtribunal.com. #Xinjiang
Read 7 tweets
Nov 25, 2021
Not only is govt introducing this fiercely anti-democratic law, it is doing it on the sly - forcing through alarming amendments in the Lords so only v committed peers will sit until the early hours to challenge them.

This is not how confident, healthy democracy should function. For more detail on the amendments Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, to which the government quietly tabled these alarming amendments on the right to protest, see Adam’s thread here:
Read 6 tweets
Oct 25, 2021
First India, now Hong Kong. @amnesty closed its offices in HK “with a heavy heart” citing “recent targeting of local human rights & trade union groups signals an intensification of the authorities’ campaign to rid the city of all dissenting voices.” #NSL

amnesty.org/en/latest/news… A recently thriving civil society is being taken apart, unions and NGOs forced to close down, as dissent is silenced in Hong Kong through the lashings of a national security law, whose first trials are now making their way through the courts. nytimes.com/2021/10/24/wor…
Read 5 tweets
Sep 11, 2021
Put the telly on Britain. Right now. #USOpen2021 The composure of both of these immensely talented young players on such a stage. Wow.

We’re cheering you on @EmmaRaducanu!
Read 4 tweets
Apr 23, 2021
India is verging on a catastrophic crisis. And the consequences will impact beyond India’s borders.

An international community - otherwise keen to pursue friendly trade deals - must be able to offer immediate assistance to a people in need. I hope Britain will lead. #O2IndiaSOS Please take a few minutes to watch @BDUTT describing India’s national emergency to @BBCWorld - “a broken country, a country in torment, rage and pain”.

PM @BorisJohnson was due to visit India on Monday. Can’t we offer help, oxygen, supplies?#O2IndiaSOS

bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-…
Read 4 tweets
Apr 20, 2021
My India TL is full of the most harrowing stories, images, cries for help and heroic efforts, by medical staff and citizens alike. The government remains all but absent.

Watching this unfold in real time on Twitter, the scale is hard to comprehend. And heartbreaking. This shocking, painful piece gives a glimpse into the scale of the desperation and tragedy amidst the government’s apparently indifferent response, as journalists and doctors fight to be heard on covid in India. @BloombergQuint
Read 9 tweets
Apr 16, 2021
Breaking News from Hong Kong: Senior lawyers Martin Lee QC, Margaret Ng & Albert Ho have been handed suspended sentences.

Jimmy Lai & other pro-democracy veterans Lee Cheuk-yan, Cyd Ho, Leung Kwok-hung jailed immediately, sentences ranging from 8 to 18 months. H/t @alvinllum Here is the detail of the sentences passed, said to be “deterrent”.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 16, 2021
#HongKong “For the law must serve the people, not the people the law"

Barrister Margaret Ng speaking at her sentencing, alongside 7 veteran pro-democracy & human rights figures, inc Martin Lee QC & Jimmy Lai, convicted on 1 April for taking part in August 2019 protests. Powerful sentencing remarks by Margaret Ng, 73 year old barrister & former legislator at her own sentencing hearing.

She adds “The law should give protection to rights, not take them away, especially in Hong Kong, where structural democracy is still absent”.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 13, 2021
#FreedomofExpression judgments from @ECHR_CEDH on journalists in Turkey today, pending since 2017. #AhmetAltan, convicted of "aiding a terrorist organisation" for 3 columns, imprisoned for 4 years 7 months already. Court finds violations of Articles 5(1) (4) & 10, but not Art 18. We @BarHumanRights have followed & monitored the trial of #AhmetAltan, as well as many others in Turkey. I was privileged to witness his release, but we were amongst so many deeply concerned to see his re-arrest in November 2019.

barhumanrights.org.uk/breaking-immin…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 18, 2021
Nobody is above the law. A basic premise of the rule of law.

Judicial review acts as an essential check to ensure the government acts within the law.

That *is* its intended purpose. Here's the Faulks Review of judicial review. I haven't had time to do more than skim the conclusions yet.

They note "the submissions are without exception opposed to, or at best not persuaded of, the need for reform."

Now the govt is asking again... consult.justice.gov.uk/judicial-revie…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 12, 2021
The right to peaceful assembly is a fundamental, empowering right (in domestic & international law) which enables active participation & citizenship outside of narrow politics.

IMO, the constraints proposed constitute unwarranted & disproportionate interference with the right. The obligation to respect and ensure peaceful assemblies places positive and negative obligations on States. States must not prohibit, restrict or block peaceful assemblies without compelling justification, nor sanction participants or organisers without legitimate cause.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 1, 2021
#HongKong Crowds gathered outside court as 47 pro-democracy candidates, campaigners & activists are charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under national security law #NSL.

The prosecutions, a clear statement of intent, are descending into farce. Trouble in Hong Kong. 🧵 Hard to know where to begin with this statement.
Read 13 tweets
Feb 8, 2021
This is bitterly disappointing, a low blow.

Last week @BarHumanRights, in supporting the #GenocideAmendment, restated its concern that the Govt position - to maintain the status quo - may be used to justify inaction in the face of credible evidence that genocide is occurring. See the full text of our @BarHumanRights statement supporting #GenocideAmendment.

It allows courts to do what they do well- adjudicate on the facts - & Parliament to take informed decisions on the basis of a preliminary legal determination.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 2, 2021
#India Many have seen reports of the massive #FarmersProtests. As the right to dissent faces increasing challenge in India, press freedom is again threatened. 8 journalists face criminal charges, incl sedition, for reporting allegations of rights abuses during the protests. If you are interested in the way dissent and free expression has become increasingly criminalised in Modi’s #India, since 2014, this excellent new database bears close examination.
Read 11 tweets
Jan 23, 2021
“It was pretty clear we had to be complicit in the fallacy that these things could just work, or risk losing any influence we might have.”

This line, from a CEO, sums up the last 4+ years of May & Johnson’s Brexit.

This brilliant #longread undoes it all. on.ft.com/3c0vhPX Imagine any CEO or company board reaction to news that financial analysis had not been carried out for fear of what it might reveal.

Then transpose to a govt, acting against the economic interests of its own people to maintain the fiction that if we just believe hard enough...
Read 6 tweets
Jan 20, 2021
💜 what a moment. 💜 Light years away from all we have witnessed, so many women, and women of colour, centre stage.

Representation matters. 💜

Something wonderful today. 💜

#justiciaparatodos.
Read 7 tweets