Editorial
Front Page - Friday, October 8, 2010
Local lawyer assesses legal situation in Columbia
David Laprad
Chattanooga trial attorney Hugh Moore traveled to Columbia in August with 54 other attorneys from around the world to assess the challenges lawyers in the country face and offer counsel. Here, Moore poses with an attorney from Canada who also took part in the trip.
- Photo provided
Chattanooga trial attorney Hugh Moore sits in his office high up in the Tallan Building, a large plate glass window behind him and never worries about getting shot in the back of his head as he works at his desk. He represents defendants in death penalty cases and never entertains the idea that he might be in danger because he’s the advocate for an unpopular person. And he takes drug related cases without thinking he might be putting his life on the life.
His counterparts in Colum-bia, South America, are not as fortunate. While Moore was in the country in August, a prosecutor and a defense attorney met violent ends, bringing the estimated number of lawyers murdered in the country since 1991 to 400. Ten days before his arrival, a car bomb exploded in Bogota, the country’s capital city. During his visit, Moore met a female attorney who’d received a frightening threat from a guerilla group.
“She was representing someone in a land rights dispute. She came home one afternoon and there was a box on her doorstep addressed to her. Inside was a Barbie Doll cut into pieces and a note that read ‘Greetings. We know where your children go to school.’
“I sit here every day and feel safe. But you can get into an airplane, and in just a few hours, be in a completely different world.”
The state of affairs in Columbia is a result of decades of political violence and unrest. As Moore explains, the downturn began in 1948 with an armed insurrection that pitted peasants against landowners. In the ‘70s, the movement morphed into a drug war centered on narcotics trafficking.
The rebels became more brazen over the years. Then, in 1985, a group known as M-19 stormed Columbia’s supreme court building and executed 11 magistrates in an attempt to undermine the legal system of the country.
Guerillas continue to fight against the government today.
Lawyers in Columbia are reaching out for help. Moore and 54 other attorneys from over a dozen countries spanning the globe spent eight days in Columbia assessing the situation and offering their hosts, a collection of law firms called Acadeum, their counsel. They left determined to bring about change.
Moore traveled with Edward
Turner, the board chair of Lawyers Without Borders, a group of volunteer attorneys from around the world that offers pro bono services to international projects. Following the outing to Columbia, the organization began work on two initiatives: helping Columbia transition from a European inquisitorial legal system to an American adversarial legal system, and working with lawyers in the country to establish a bar.
Moore says the legal system in Columbia is different from the one to which he is accustomed. There, attorneys write massive briefs explaining their client’s side of the situation. A judge then reads the briefs, investigates the case and makes a decision. There’s no jury and the lawyers never appear in court.
Lawyers Without Borders is developing a training program to teach Columbian attorneys to think like lawyers who work within an adversarial system.
“It won’t be easy for them to change. It’ll be as hard for them as it would be for me to learn to work under their system,” Moore says.
Lawyers Without Borders is also working to provide attorneys in Columbia with materials that would explain why they should work together rather than separately. Currently, attorneys in the country are on their own, as they have no organization that speaks on their behalf. Consequently, Moore says, they tend to be identified with their clients rather than an established legal community, with disastrous results.
“If a lawyer is representing a small landowner in a property dispute with a guerilla group, and he files a lawsuit against the group, the guerillas will simply kill him,” he says.
Again, Moore says changing an entrenched way of thinking won’t be easy.
“I take it for granted that I’m here and Bill Cox is in the district attorney’s office, but we’re both lawyers and can be a part of the same association. In Columbia, the defense attorneys and prosecutors don’t understand why they should work together.”
Moore is working with people in New York and Connecticut on developing advocacy training for Columbian lawyers and putting together the materials that would explain to attorneys in the country how a national bar association would make them more powerful. Despite the dire nature of the situation in Columbia and the challenges ahead of them, he believes they can make a difference.
“The U.S. has a more than $30 million commitment to human rights programs in Columbia. We’re buying armored cars for attorneys and installing bullet proof windows in their offices. We also have about 1,000 soldiers down there. We’re trying to help. But the key is the Columbian government wants our help,” he says.
While Moore is hopeful, he knows it won’t be easy bringing about change in a complex country whose legal system is inefficient, ineffective and rooted in its ways.
“If someone breaks a contract with you, you take it for granted that you can take them to court, and a judge will hear your side of the story, make a decision and enforce it. But people in Columbia don’t feel as though they have access to the courts because lawyers are afraid to file lawsuits and most cases are either lost or just go away,” he says.
Then there’s the tension that underlies every aspect of life in Columbia, where without warning a car bomb can spill innocent blood. In cases like that, people have two choices: cower in fear or stand up and fight. It’s not easy for people to push back when they are literally under a gun, but with help from Lawyers Without Borders and the other attorneys who took part in the trip to Columbia, Moore is hoping lawyers in the country will do just that.
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