Does the presence of a prominent foreign lawyer acting as a trial observer for the international community occasionally modify the behavior of prosecutors and judges? The recent experiences of three ISLP media lawyers in two criminal trials in the Mideast suggest that the answer is “yes.”
In Kuwait City, the human rights defender Abdulhakim Al-Fadhili was put on trial on eight trumped-up charges, including broadcasting false news, insulting foreign countries, sedition, joining demonstrations, and abusive use of the phone. Regarded as a Bidoon or stateless person in Kuwait, Al-Fadhili said that he faced life imprisonment. Two ISLP volunteers personally attended and monitored successive court hearings in 2019.
They were Kristin Medoza, an Arabic speaker, who has served as a volunteer every year since 2006. She is a Kirkland & Ellis partner and a member of the ISLP Board of Directors. The second ISLP volunteer trial observer was Jessica Boulet, an accomplished human rights lawyer who is also fluent in Arabic.
When the trial court acquitted Al-Fadhili of five of the charges in February 2020, he wrote that he believed that “the presence of observers in the (court) room pressured the court to issue a more lenient verdict.” Al-Fadhili sent his “gratitude and thanks.”
A Tunisian criminal defense lawyer, Ms. Najet Abidi, representing a victim of police torture, attempted in twelve successive hearings over many months to submit pleadings to a recalcitrant military court judge. Ms. Abidi stated to the judge her objections that the procedures were neither proper nor fair. A military court convicted her in absentia of judicial insult without giving her any prior notice of the trial. An appellate military court reduced her sentence from one year to six months.
In June 2019 Ms. Najet went on trial again before a different three-judge military tribunal for the same expression for which she had been convicted and sentenced. This trial was observed by David Shultz, a Yale Law School media law professor and Ballard Spahr partner. He has served abroad as an ISLP volunteer for over a dozen years.
In February 2020 the court convicted Ms. Abidi and fined her the equivalent of only USD 5. She expressed her thanks for the presence of Mr. Shultz at the trial.
Richard Winfield, a co-founder of ISLP twenty years ago, an of counsel to Clifford Chance US LLP, chairs the ISLP Media Law Working Group.