INDIAN ASSOCIATION OF PEOPLE’S LAWYERS (IAPL)
4th All India Conference
24th & 25th June, 2017,
Sundarayya Vignana Kendram, HyderabadIndian Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), founded in 2004, is a constituent of International Association of People’s Lawyers. International Association of People’s Lawyers has its Headquarters in the Netherlands. Its founding Congress was in 2000 in Doorn, Netherlands, which was attended by lawyer-members from Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, Colombia, Nepal, Turkey, Philippines, India and a few other countries.The founding conference of IAPL was held in Mumbai in 2004 attended by some 70 lawyers. The second and third All India Conferences were both held in Nagpur
on 25th and 26th March 2006 and 8th & 9th January 2011 respectively. Justice (Retd) H. Suresh, Justice (Retd) Michael Saldhana, Justice (Retd) Ajit Shah, Justice (Retd) Rajinder Sachar, Adv. P. A. Sebastian, Adv. Dr. Mukul Sinha, Adv. Indira Jaising and Adv. Prashant Bhushan were some of the speakers who actively participated in past Conferences.
The fourth All India Conference
The fourth All India Conference of IAPL will be held in Hyderabad on 24th & 25th June, 2017 (Emergency day) in the background of the recent recommendations of the Law Commission to criminalize lawyer’s strikes or abstention from court work. The right to strike flows from the fundamental right to association and protest. Like most of the oppressed sections in India, the right to protest and collectively bargain is being criminalized and gradually eroded. Draconian legislations such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Sedition, Armed Forces Special Powers Act and various Public Security Acts are being used to suppress the struggling people and dissenting voices. Thousands of such people’s activists, lawyers or Human Right Defenders have been labeled as ‘terrorists’ or ‘anti-Nationals’ and incarcerated under such Acts. The Conference will deal with this aspect of suppression of the people’s right to protest and the use of so-called anti-terror laws in the context of social and political peoples’ movements and the Kashmiri people’s resistance.
On the other hand State Surveillance has been steadily increasing. In the name of ‘National security’, the citizen’s right to privacy is being brutally suppressed. The blatant example is the UID (Aadhaar) project ̶ a story of coercion, rampant illegality and outrageous contempt of court orders. The UID project forces the citizen into choicelessness, destroying the idea of consent, while the State assumes power over the body and data of every person, which it then allows Corporate interests to use. The Conference also seeks to examine and discuss whether this Surveillance signifies a new Emergency.
IAPL Invites You
IAPL and International Association of People’s Lawyers take up issues regarding struggling people, whether peasants, workers, indigenous people, women, whichever section they may be. We approach such organizations and find out what legal problems they face and do their cases inside & outside courts as circumstances demand. IAPL has as its members lawyers, law students and para-legals who believe in and work towards creation of a just and egalitarian society and provide legal support to people’s struggles to live with human dignity.
On Saturday, 24th June 2017, IAPL members will discuss about the situation and issues prevailing in their respective States and formulation of a collective program for the future.
On the second day i.e. Sunday, 25th June 2017 we will begin the discussion with a key note address by Justice (Retd) Abhay Thipsay and followed with inputs by: Justice (Retd) H. Suresh; Adv. Parvez Imroz, (President, JKCCS) on “Situation of Lawyers in Kashmir”; Dr. Usha Ramanathan on “UID, Surveillance and the New Emergency?”; Prof. Srikrishna Deva Rao (VC, NLU Odisha), on “Social Movements and the Judiciary”; Adv. Mohamad Shareef (Peoples’ Movement against UAPA) on “‘Terror’ related cases and the Judiciary” and Adv. Rajvinder Singh Bains on “Civil Liberties and the Judiciary”.
IAPL does not receive any finances from funding agencies. It is only through members’ and well-wishers’ contributions that its activities are conducted. Hence, IAPL has fixed a registration fee of Rs. 200/- (for Advocates) and Rs. 100/- (for students/para-legals) for attending and participating in the Fourth All India Conference.
We invite lawyers to attend and participate in the Fourth All India Conference of IAPL to make it a success.
For further details please contact:
Surendra Gadling [09604298307],
M. Venkanna [09440496422],
Arun Ferreira [09769287956],
D. Suresh Kumar [07780458082],
Ankit Grewal [09988102122].
Adv. Sudha Bharadwaj
Vice President, IAPL
IAPL Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers 