Blair accepts Law Soc’s honour. Photo: Hannah Boles
Nora Moroney
Staff Writer
Two prominent voices in the world of law gave speeches in the GMB on Monday last as former Irish president Mary Robinson awarded Cherie Blair with the Law Society’s inaugural Justicia Omnibus Award.
Introducing the award, which was named in honour of Robinson herself, Law Soc auditor Lydia Rahill praised both women’s ‘tireless dedication to human rights’ and their enduring influence on world affairs. The guests’ speeches also focused on the cause of human rights within international law as well as the role of women in today’s legal profession. Robinson, a former student of law at Trinity and current chancellor of the college, introduced her fellow speaker as an old friend and a leading barrister in many areas of human rights and social justice. She listed some of Blair’s achievements, including the establishment of the ‘groundbreaking’ Matrix chambers, and commented particularly on Blair’s role in advocating for the rights of widows. Speaking to a mostly female audience in the chamber, she also recalled her own years as an undergraduate and her efforts at public speaking in the same room.
Both of the talks centred around the issue of law as an instrument of social change. Cherie Blair made reference to Robinson’s tenure as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and described her as a ‘trailblazer’ in many areas concerning women and rights. She also, Blair said, highlighted the importance of lawyers who were willing to stand as a voice for justice in their own society and internationally.
Blair described the fundamental principles of human rights as ‘self-evident’, but stressed that democratic freedoms such as fairness, human dignity and justice were not universally acknowledged and should not be taken for granted. The law, she stated, could be a powerful force for direction and constancy within any society. The importance of education was another area of interest touched upon. Blair commented on her own upbringing as a Catholic girl from Liverpool who was never discouraged from pursuing a career in law, despite the many obstacles that then faced women who were called to the bar. Her current position as the first chancellor for the Asian University for Women was, she said, a significant one for promoting the legal profession for young women and effecting change in the gender balance of the world leaders. But the public must be educated in the role of law too, she argued, if it is to make a definite positive impact across society.
Robinson addresses the crowd. Photo: Hannah Boles
She described the challenges that were faced in the popular conception of law as ‘esoteric and irrelevant’, and stressed that lawyers must translate the principles of human rights into ‘words that are understood outside the courtroom’. In this sense Blair named Eleanor Roosevelt and fellow Liverpudlian Rose Heilbron as role models of hers. Both were examples of women, she said, who recognised that basic human rights began in ‘schools, factories, offices; [places] where everyone seeks equal dignity’. She also quoted Martin Luther King in expressing that the rule of law was the world’s greatest unifying factor, as well as the most benign; ‘a true force for good’. She described the recent case of the death of SavitaHalappanavarin Galway as a prime example of the immediacy of human rights causes. In this case, she said, she ‘didn’t see it as a case of two conflicting rights to life’, whereby the hospital didn’t put the principle of the Irish constitution into effect to save the mother.
‘Human rights’, she argued, ‘presents us with tough questions that have to be engaged with, discussed and tested’. Both speakers answered questions from the audience at the end on the issues of women’s rights, the UN and international social justice. Robinson referred to her time as High Commissioner as ‘frustrating at times’, and her strong belief that ‘absolute poverty undermines all human rights’. She claimed, however, that the UN was the ‘least worst of the alternatives’ in trying to achieve a more equal, just society worldwide. Both Robinson and Blair spoke of Hilary Clinton’s statement that ‘women’s rights are human rights’ as a watershed, with the former president adding that the rights of women should also be championed as cause of their own.
