Pan-American Judges Unite at Vatican to Defend Social Rights

Blue Chip Foundation founder Jennifer Gross traveled to Casina Pío IV to provide support and participate in the Pan-American Judges’ Summit on Social Rights and Franciscan Doctrine June 3 and June 4, 2019. The summit was organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, now headed by Professor Stefano Zamagni, and held at the Vatican.

The Pan-American Judges’ Summit on Social Rights and Franciscan Doctrine

The Pan-American Judges’ Summit on Social Rights and Franciscan Doctrine is the second of its kind – the first was held during June 2018 in Buenos Aires.

The summit, which involved more than 100 magistrates from Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Chile and several other Pan-American countries, addressed the need to defend and protect humans’ social rights throughout the world. 

Gross began the event with a speech addressing and thanking the judges for attending, as well as outlining the purpose of the conference. 

“Together we can create best practices to alleviate poverty, end hunger, provide health care for all, ensure quality and free education including university level education for all,” Gross said. “We must ultimately aim to ensure equal pay for all  within a workforce that respects equality of race, culture, sexuality and gender. Only then can we have a productive economy and a workforce filled with individuals fulfilling their dreams and realizing their potential.”

Human and Social Rights

The summit addressed the need to create legislation that preserves human rights, as well as determining how to create support for judges facing political pressure when it comes to social rights. Social injustice is ingrained in many societies, and judges face tremendous amounts of resistance when they attempt to make changes.

The group aimed to determine how to implement the “Three Ts”: tierra, techo y trabajo, or land, housing and work as a means of social justice. It also addressed issues such as how to challenge budgetary constraints that countries operate under, overcoming political pressures many magistrates face, and creating a global movement that defends and protects humans’ social rights.

Judge Tamila Ipema, president of the National Association of Women Judges, implored the committee to defend judges who hold fast to morality, citing the work the state of California has done.

“In California, our judges have come together and created a defense fund to help judges who are under attack by special interest groups who want to remove certain judges for unjust reasons. As judges, we work together and stand up for each other if anyone unjustly challenges one of our judges in California. We all need to stand up together to protect the integrity of our justice system,” Ipema said. “There can be no justice if judges do not have independence to do the right thing under the law. Being a judge today is a dangerous job. We must recognize the courage of the judges who are doing the right thing by not giving in to the pressures; judges who remain independent, and we must defend them when they are attacked.”

The summit’s overarching goal was to consolidate a permanent Pan-American Board of Judges in Defense of Social Rights. The board can help coordinate efforts to optimize policies centered on people’s social, economic and cultural rights, as well as promote training and provide assistance to help defend judges who are politically pressured to violate people’s rights. 

Part of that is equal access to justice, as noted by Judge Bernadette D’Souza of New Orleans, Louisiana.

“It is our responsibility and ethical duty as judges to ensure that low-income litigants are able to navigate the court system in order to avail themselves of the relief they deserve. By depriving our poorest citizens of civil legal services, we reinforce an inequitable system that inhibits both individual and community progress. Promoting equal access to civil legal aid for all is an essential step to creating communities that support our most vulnerable members of society and provide justice for all,” said D’Souza.

In her own speech, Gross also acknowledged the need to regulate clean water, acknowledge climate change and create legislation to mitigate environmental damage, and put systems in place to deal with the catastrophic natural disasters climate change will bring. 

Pope Francis at the Pan-American Judges’ Summit on Social Rights and Franciscan Doctrine

Pope Francis also spoke at the event, saying, “For its healthy development, a politico-economic system needs to guarantee that democracy is not just nominal, but that it’s molded in concrete actions that watch over the dignity of all its inhabitants, under the logic of the common good, in an appeal to solidarity and a preferential option for the poor.”

This is a time of crisis, Pope Francis said, and he lashed out against “lawfare,” an unfortunately commonplace practice that pits the legal system against a perceived enemy. It jeopardizes democracy and, according to the pope, “is used to undermine emerging political processes and tends towards the systematic violation of social rights.”

“We are living in a historical period of changes, where the soul of our peoples is at stake,” Pope Francis said. “A time of crisis – of dangers and opportunities – in which a paradox is verified: on one hand, a phenomenal normative development, and on the other, deterioration in the effective enjoyment of rights consecrated globally,” said Pope Francis. “The injustice and the lack of tangible and concrete opportunities behind so much analysis, incapable of putting itself in the other’s feet – I don’t say shoes, because in many cases those persons don’t have any – is also a way of generating violence: silent, but violence in the end.”

The Declaration

The participants of the Pan-American Judges’ Summit on Social Rights and Doctrine concluded the convention with a declaration that calls on all countries to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

“We call on all countries to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which are our generation’s specific and time-bound commitments to fulfill the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related human rights agreements,” the declaration says. “We understand that it is impossible to live in peace and democracy when our political and social processes strive to disenfranchise people and destroy the environment. We caution against any attempt to exploit the judiciary in order to limit Human Rights in political and economic scenarios, denature judicial functions and destroy democracy.”

The congress of judges, which also included the Hon. Judith Chirlin, Hon. Lisette Shirdan-Harris, Hon. Joy Cossich Lobrano and Hon. Linda Strite Murnane, as well as a wide array of justices from Central and South American countries, signed the declaration acknowledging growing injustice and violence across the world, as well as the failure of the global economic system to keep the environment stable. Together, these two factors are “contributing to an integral degradation of human existence,” the declaration says.

With the right support systems in place, judges can limit actions that are destructive and degrading for humanity and the planet. 

“I admire the courage of all our judges here today who risk their lives against evil in the form of organized crime and chaos found in governmental institutions led by immoral leaders. Never has there been a time where your fortitude to exercise your judicial power is needed more,” said Gross. “Within this board, we can call ourselves ‘lovers of justice,’ overcome political pressures, and create a worldwide movement based on the unrestricted defense of social rights.”

PAN-AMERICAN JUDGES’ SUMMIT ON SOCIAL RIGHTS AND FRANCISCAN DOCTRINE ROME STATEMENT

The undersigned, participants in the First Pan-American Judges’ Summit on Social Rights and Franciscan Doctrine

DECLARE THAT:

We are deeply concerned about the deterioration of national and international regulatory systems and, in particular, about the degradation in the universal exercise of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. We observe a pronounced global process of social dualization that entails structural injustice and violence. In an unprecedented way, a shrinking minority is accumulating the world’s wealth, diminishing the wellbeing and dignity of millions of human beings.

At the same time, we note that the current global economic system does little or nothing to keep the environment stable, thus contributing to an integral degradation of human existence. 

The teachings and example of Pope Francis make us question ourselves and, irrespective of our personal religious beliefs, encourage us to reconsider the way we approach our judicial mission.

Humanity’s current situation entrusts us with the enormous responsibility of judicially monitoring the fulfillment of human rights, a firm and courageous stance that, in practice, limits those actions which are destructive and degrading for humanity and for our planet. 

We consider it essential for states to recognize the unconditional effectiveness of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and to modify their budgetary policies in order to achieve equitable and fair operations for the purposes of strict compliance.

We call on all countries to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which are our generation’s specific and time-bound commitments to fulfill the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related human rights agreements.

We call on all countries to take decisive actions to fulfill the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement, which are vital for human survival and wellbeing, especially for the poor and for coming generations.

We understand that it is impossible to live in peace and democracy when our political and social processes strive to disenfranchise people and destroy the environment.

We caution against any attempt to exploit the judiciary in order to limit Human Rights in political and economic scenarios, denature judicial functions and destroy democracy.

We emphasize that when communication systems are focused on pressurizing public powers to the detriment of Human Rights, they lose their essence and endanger the institutions by replacing public powers with media operations of dubious legitimacy. 

In this context of planetary crisis, we ask our fellow judges of the Americas to assume the role that the present time demands of us, coordinating efforts, designing strategies and ratifying on a daily basis our commitment to human dignity, global peace, and the realization of human rights in all dimensions.