On Monday 20 February, a packed Tent City University hosted Occupy Law, where an eminent panel provided their insights about how the legal system is both part of the problem and part of the solution to the injustices that Occupy is seeking to address. The panel comprised Prof Conor Gearty, Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the LSE, David Wolfe of Matrix Chambers, Sarah Sackman of FTB Chambers, David Allen Green, barrister and New Statesman journalist and Occupy defendant George Barda.

Participants had the chance to hear the panel’s veiws on two broad themes, and explore these in further detail via clarificatory questions. The first theme centred around the role of civil disobedience in social movements, drawing on past and current examples worldwide, including Occupy and the current eviction case against the St. Paul’s encampment. The second theme explored the extent to which corporations have become indistinguishable from government, how legal structures facilitate this, and what needs to change.

The Occupy movement’s relationship with the law was a pervasive thread throughout the discussion, and the event provided a powerful spark for ongoing debate about how the law can be harnessed to advance a more equitable society – and indeed why this is going to be vital in achieving progress towards true justice.

On the first theme, many of the panellists observed how peaceful protest, including the breaking of unjust laws, has had a role in many historical movements in progressing values and ultimately changing the law in line with those values. As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said in his letter from a Birmingham jail, “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

Sarah Sackman for example drew inspiration from legal precedent in the US civil rights movement to show how civil disobedience and pioneering legal challenges can combine to promote fundamental change to frameworks of inequality that have plagued history. Others picked up the same themes, illustrating the role of court action both in developing better law and, even where a challenge is unsuccessful, in shining a light on the need for change: as Connor Gearty said, “losing can become a victory if you transform opinion in the course of your defeat.” Similarly, examples were drawn from other social movements where non-violent civil disobedience has helped push the boundaries of the legal structures underpinning society, and there was a general consensus that this is one of the tools available to the Occupy movement, among a spectrum of many actions within the law.

On the second broad theme of “corporatocracy”, the panel considered the extent to which the legal system facilitates the disproportionate influence and power of corporations, at the expense of equity and the environment. Important examples that were discussed included corporate personhood, which shields human individuals from the consequences of harmful actions, the privatisation of public space, which is both a barrier to freedom of assembly (as seen with in Canary Wharf when Occupy London sought to protest there) and results in the pervasive presence of corporations, and the unaccountable nature of the City of London Corporation. These are all illustrations of how the legal system acts as a “faithful servant to power” as George Barda said.

There was nonetheless a strong message from the panel that the rule of law is indispensible. David Allen Green for instance spoke of its vital role in “binding those who wish to oppress us”, articulating the importance of legal structures in holding power to account, with the hacking case being a resounding illustration of this. David Wolfe cited a case where Matrix Chambers acted on behalf of NGOs to challenge the Treasury as majority shareholder in RBS for failing to intervene in its bankrolling of industries responsible for severe environmental and climate damage as well as human rights abuses. Although the challenge itself was unsuccessful, it had been effective in exposing the unethical investment practices of RBS, and establishing that the government does have a say in the spending decisions of RBS following the bailout, consequently exposing that failure to exercise this control is a purely political choice.

Other examples of progressive law were also cited; for example, Sarah Sackman spoke of how the law on village greens and rights of way enables the public to trump private interests. Embracing both main themes of the evening, Connor Gearty made the overarching point that legal and political structures and our engagement with these are essential: failure to do so in fact hands a victory straight to those who wish to see a corporate free-for-all.

In terms of reform, a powerful tool for protesters is to expose examples of corporate action that is legal but iniquitous – an idea put forward by Connor Gearty, which George Barda noted is already underway. Access to the courts for ordinary citizens was also briefly discussed, including the proposal that the system should be made simpler so that individuals can represent themselves without recourse to lawyers.

Fittingly, the formal part of the event finished amidst an enormous sense of a conversation to be continued. As co-organiser and solicitor Melanie Strickland said, we must see this as the beginning of the debate, with a view to achieving the ongoing engagement of the legal community in the question of whether and how we can ensure that the law can serve the interests of true equity and justice for all.

Get involved via the Occupy Law UK Facebook group:  http://www.facebook.com/groups/372585289420239/