Liberty and Civil Liberties Trust Annual Review 2009
Mar 22, 2016
Liberty and Civil Liberties Trust Annual Review 2009
Stills from our short film about Liberty's history.Watch online at http://bit.ly/liberty75
Contents
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About Liberty and theCivil Liberties Trust
Dear Friends
The Year in Pictures
Campaigns
Policy
Legal
Media
Outreach
Events
Governance
Liberty Financial Report
Civil Liberties TrustFinancial Report
Thank You
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About Liberty and the Civil Liberties Trust
This landmark Liberty report about the mental health systemwas published in 1951
LibertyWho we areLiberty is also known as the National Councilfor Civil Liberties. Founded in 1934, we are across party, non-party membership organisa-tion at the heart of the movement forfundamental rights and freedoms in Englandand Wales. We promote the values of individualhuman dignity, equal treatment and fairness asthe foundations of a democratic society.
Our missionLiberty seeks to protect civil liberties and pro-mote human rights for everyone.
What we doLiberty works to protect basic rights and free-doms through the courts, in parliament and inthe wider community. We do this through acombination of public campaigning, test caselitigation, parliamentary lobbying, policy analy-sis and the provision of free advice andinformation.
The Civil Liberties TrustThe Civil Liberties Trust works to promotehuman rights and civil liberties throughresearch, policy work, litigation, education and advice. It works in parallel with Liberty andis based in the same building. The Trust doesnot employ staff but pursues its objectives by funding Liberty to carry out specifically charitable work. Most of the Trust’s direct char-itable expenditure is represented by grants toLiberty to fund work in the areas of information,research, publications, advice and legal serv-ices.
The Civil Liberties Trust’s objectivesare:1. The promotion of domestic human rights
including the elimination of the infringementof those rights and the promoting of effec-tive remedies following any breach, for thebenefit of the public.
2. The provision of legal advice, assistanceand representation on human rights andcivil liberties to those unable to pay for it.
3. The provision of educational material andinformation on civil liberties and humanrights.
4. The undertaking and promotion of researchinto civil liberties and human rights.
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Dear Friends
We’re sure you won’t be surprised to hear thatthere was no rest for Liberty in our 75th birthdayyear. As well as looking back at how far we’vecome and celebrating what we have achieved,we had our feet firmly in the present. In 2009Liberty took a number of key legal cases, influ-enced policy-making at the highest level, raisedawareness through the media, ran several pop-ular and engaging public events and helpedthousands of people through our free adviceservices. You can read more about all of theseon the following pages. But first, here’s areminder of how the story of Liberty began.
On the hunger marches of the 1930s, as des-perate people dissented against poverty,corruption and the threat of extremism, our firstGeneral Secretary Ronald Kidd witnessed bru-tal police attacks on peaceful protesters. Hedecided to act, and gathered support from theworlds of politics, law, the arts and sciences,from figures including HG Wells, Vera Brittain,EM Forster, Clement Attlee, Kingsley Martin,and Prof. Harold Laski. In February 1934, theNational Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) wasformed to champion the rights of ordinary peo-ple and hold the powerful to account.
In our 75 years we have campaigned on anenormous range of issues, from fighting intern-ment and abuse of police powers, to protectingfree speech, peaceful protest and equal rightsfor all. What has remained constant is oursense of purpose. Today, as Liberty, we striveto continue the work that NCCL began, armedwith the wisdom and achievements of ouryears.
Throughout 2009 we were battling on manyfronts, and we saw some important successesduring the year, including the criminalisation offorced labour and servitude and damagingblows to secret inquests, blanket DNA reten-tion, control orders and the ID cards scheme.Our major campaign, Common Values, moved
up a gear in 2009 as we worked to broadenrespect and understanding for human rightsand their universal application, a message ofhope and human solidarity grounded in the val-ues that our founders fought for.
In 2009 we were also looking towards thefuture, and a new home for Liberty. After 30years we have outgrown our current crampedbuilding, and we need your help to move to anew building in Westminster. The move will beboth practical and symbolic – on the doorstepof the decision-makers we will be in a muchbetter position to hold them to account, as wehave done for the best part of a century.
To protect Liberty’s future for a generation, andto secure a building fit for the modern cam-paigning machine which Liberty has become,please consider making a donation atwww.justgiving.com/futureofliberty Your sup-port will have a lasting impact, benefiting thenext generation of Liberty campaigners andsetting us well on the way to another 75 years.
Yours ever,
FrancesButler Acting Chairof Liberty
ShamiChakrabartiDirector ofLiberty
ChristineJacksonChair of CivilLiberties Trust
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The Year in Pictures
January Liberty andACLU build 'specialrelationship' based onrespect for human rightsand Asylum electionpledge launched
FebruaryFounders'letter andRonald Kidd
March Happy birthday Liberty! April G20 protest
May Governmentclimb-down on secretinquests
June Anniversary Conference and AGM
July Privacy film
August 'Don't Let Gary Go'supporter picture
SeptemberPartyconferences
October Churchill’s Legacy Conservativecase for the HRA published
November Victory on forced labour
December Gurkha Justice campaign winHuman Rights Award
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Campaigns
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“Liberty combines the wisdom andexperience of history with all the rawenergy, passion and commitment ittakes to meet the challenges to civilliberties, new and old, every day.”
Author Ali Smith
Liberty is a campaigning organisation with 75years of expertise. Here are a few highlightsfrom our public campaigning work in 2009.
Common ValuesOur ongoing Common Values campaign aimsto broaden understanding and respect forhuman rights and counter the damaging mythsthat surround the Human Rights Act.
Conference: Common Values inTimes of CrisisIn June we held a hugely successful and enjoy-able day of discussion and debate, where over500 Liberty members and supporters heardfrom a wide range of speakers including formersenior Law Lord, Lord Bingham and a host ofother figures from politics, law and the arts.More on page 14.
PollingLiberty/ComRes Polls in June and Decemberrevealed overwhelming support for humanrights laws, with over 95% of respondentsagreeing that it is important that there is a lawto protect rights and freedoms in the UK. Thelack of public information about the HumanRights Act was also clear, as less than 12% ofpeople remembered seeing any informationexplaining the Act.
Party conferencesCommon Values was highly visible at PartyConferences and the TUC Conference in theautumn. In addition to our fringe events weused publications, venue screen advertisingand mobile poster vans to promote the cam-paign. More on page 9.
ExtraditionWatchMarking the launch of our campaign for fairerextradition laws in June, Liberty and YouGovreleased poll results showing a lack of publicawareness about the issue – 70% of thosepolled did not know about the UK’s extraditionprocedures. The poll also revealed that 58%thought the law should be changed.
Gary McKinnon, who has Asperger’s syn-drome, was charged with hacking into the USPentagon and NASA systems from his homein London and faced extradition to stand trial inAmerica. When the High Court ruled in Julythat Gary’s extradition should go ahead, wekicked off a member action to help raiseawareness and increase support for ouramendment to change the unfair law.
Nearly 200 members sent us a photograph ofthemselves with a ‘Don’t Let Gary Go’ paperplane, and hundreds lobbied their MPs aboutthe issue. The pictures were posted in anonline photo gallery which was viewed thou-sands of times in the following weeks.
In August we staged a protest outside theAmerican Embassy at the same time that theAmerican Civil Liberties Union wrote to ForeignSecretary David Miliband to express concernabout the uneven nature of the extraditionarrangements between Britain and the USA.Gary McKinnon’s friends and family took part,and the protest was widely covered in thenational media.
www.extraditionwatch.co.uk
Campaigns
Fighting forced labourAlthough the slave trade was outlawed cen-turies ago, in 2009 the UK did not have acriminal law dedicated to the particular circum-stances of modern slavery. At the start of thesummer Liberty teamed up with Anti-SlaveryInternational to campaign for a new law andwon wide support from politicians and promi-nent lawyers.
In the crucial week before the parliamentaryvote, we encouraged Liberty members andsupporters to lobby their MPs, and in the spaceof just a few days nearly 300 people hademailed their MP about the issue through ourwebsite.
In a victory which will have a real impact on thelives of some of the most vulnerable people inour society, the Government announced inOctober that it had been persuaded and wouldmove to criminalise forced labour.
Asylum Election PledgeIn January we launched our Asylum ElectionPledge (now re-launched as a joint initiativewith the Refugee Council and Scottish RefugeeCouncil) and called on MPs and party candi-dates to sign it and reject xenophobia indiscussions about asylum and immigration pol-icy. The pledge postcard was distributed toover 50 asylum and refugee organisations, andhundreds of Liberty members have called ontheir MPs to sign it using our ‘Email Your MP’website tool.
Protecting privacyEarly in the year we updated and reprinted ourpocket-sized ‘ID Cards: Fiction and Fact’ book-let and circulated 2,000 copies through localNo2ID groups. A Liberty/YouGov poll in Julyshowed that public support for ID cards hasplummeted. 68% of people polled thought the
government holds too much information aboutthem and 77% believed the UK is a surveillancesociety.
We also released a short film which underlinedthe danger of the National Identity Register.‘Where do they go?’ was produced for Libertyby graphic designer and filmmaker Will Mac-Neil, with post production by Unit and avoiceover by long-time Liberty supporter SimonCallow. The film was watched by thousands ofpeople in a few weeks through Liberty’s web-site, on YouTube and on the Guardian and ITVwebsites.
http://bit.ly/wanderingdata
Control orders: Unsafeand Unfair2009 saw a massive uptake of member actionsin our ongoing campaign against the unsafeand unfair control orders scheme. Throughoutthe year we promoted a template letter formembers and supporters to send to the HomeSecretary, encouraged supporters to lobbytheir MP and sign an online petition opposingcontrol orders – the petition received 500 sig-natures during the Christmas break alone.
www.unsafeunfair.org.uk
75th AnniversaryOn 24 February we celebrated Liberty’s 75thbirthday with a full page advert in the Guardianand Independent newspapers, and published36 ‘happy birthday’ messages from high profilesupporters from across the political spectrum,the law and performing arts.
We produced a short film celebrating our 75thanniversary which was distributed online andscreened at the conference, reminding us howfar we’ve come, and how far we still have to go.
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Policy
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“From the first contact, throughbriefings and attendance atmeetings with Ministers, Libertyprovided just the right quality andamount of support. Theircommitment to highlighting thenecessity for a new piece oflegislation on forced labour was awonderful demonstration of howevidence-based campaigning alongwith a collaborative approach canachieve real results.”
Baroness Young of Hornsey onLibertyʼs successful lobbying for the
creation of a forced labour offence
Highlights• Liberty successfully lobbied for the crimi-
nalisation of forced labour and servitude.After initial resistance from Government aprovision was eventually inserted into theCoroners and Justice Act 2009 whichcriminalises forced labour and servitude forthe first time in England and Wales. Thisimportant development should allow casesof modern day slavery to be investigatedand prosecuted much more effectively.
• We secured the removal of clause 152 ofthe Coroners and Justice Bill which wouldhave allowed for breathtakingly broad infor-mation-sharing without consent acrossGovernment departments and the privatesector.
• We secured the removal of ‘secretinquests’ from the Coroners and JusticeBill. Liberty joined forces with Inquest andJustice and led the resistance to Govern-ment proposals for inquests to be heldbehind closed doors at the Executive’srequest. The Government was forced todrop the proposals but sadly managed toretain its ‘plan B’ which will allow for aninquiry to be instituted in place of aninquest when the Executive so desires.However this option is far less politicallyfeasible than the original scheme and ifused will be open to legal challenge.
• Liberty kept up the pressure for investiga-tion and accountability regarding the UK’srole in extraordinary rendition and tortureoverseas, helping to secure a criminalinvestigation into British involvement in therendition and torture of Binyam Mohamed.
• We secured the removal of a provision inthe Policing and Crime Bill which wouldhave allowed the issue of DNA retention tobe dealt with by way of secondary legisla-tion with little parliamentary scrutiny. Wealso successfully lobbied against the Gov-ernment’s proposals to hold the DNA ofsome innocent people for 12 years. TheGovernment was forced to deal with DNAretention in primary legislation in the Crimeand Security Bill introduced at the end of2009 and it dropped its 12 year retentionproposal.
• Liberty lobbied for changes to the opera-tion of the Independent SafeguardingAuthority responsible for employment vet-ting. We secured a review of the operationof the ISA conducted by Sir Roger Single-ton towards the end of 2009.
Policy
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• We lobbied parliamentarians face to face ata number of events with partners asdiverse as Anti-Slavery International, Jus-tice, Inquest and the American CivilLiberties Union.
• We ran three successful and enormouslywell-attended fringe events at all three mainparty conferences hosting a party leader,Cabinet and shadow Cabinet members,backbench MPs, journalists and prospec-tive MPs. The events were focused onLiberty’s Common Values campaign. At theConservative Party fringe event Libertylaunched a book written by columnist PeterOborne and Tory PPC, Jesse Norman:Churchill’s Legacy: the ConservativeCase for the Human Rights Act.
LobbyingThroughout 2009, Liberty lobbied parliamen-tarians on several major bills, including theCoroners and Justice Bill; the Policing andCrime Bill; the Borders, Immigration and Citi-zenship Bill; the Equality Bill; and the WelfareReform Bill.
Liberty was mentioned 130 times in parliamen-tary debates throughout the year on these billsand others. In total the organisation producedjust under 70 detailed parliamentary briefingsin 2009: 43 bill briefings, 18 consultationresponses and 6 expert evidence papers.
Expert EvidenceLiberty responded to a number of Governmentconsultations in 2009, providing expert adviceon, among other issues, the operation ofdirected surveillance powers; DNA retentionpolicy; proposals on future storing and pro-cessing of communications data (records ofemails, phone calls, text messages etc); theIndependent Safeguarding Authority; plannedreforms to legal aid; and proposals for thereform of the naturalisation process.
Liberty was also invited to give expert oral andwritten evidence to a number of influential par-liamentary committees including the House ofCommons Home Affairs Committee, theHouse of Lords Constitution Committee andthe Bill Committees on the Coroners and Jus-tice Bill and the Policing and Crime Bill.
Liberty fringe event at Labour Party Conference. L-R Kevin Maguire, Diane Abbott MP, Shami Chakrabarti andHome Secretary Alan Johnson.
Legal
received an award from the Football Support-ers’ Federation in recognition of our work onthis issue.
SurveillanceIn November the Investigatory Powers Tribunalheard the case we brought on behalf of a fam-ily that was subjected to covert surveillance bytheir local council to check that they did indeedlive within their daughter’s school catchmentarea. We believe that this is the first time thatthe IPT, which normally operates behind closeddoors, has held a public hearing to considerthe merits of a case. We are awaiting its judg-ment.
DiscriminationWe intervened in the Court of Appeal case ofLadele v London Borough of Islington, whichconcerned an orthodox Christian registrar whosought to be excused from conducting civilpartnerships. We supported the EmploymentAppeal Tribunal ruling that Islington’s refusal toaccommodate Ms Ladele’s religious beliefs wasjustified because they involved unlawful discrim-ination on grounds of sexual orientation. InDecember the Court of Appeal upheld thejudgment and, as permission to appeal to theSupreme Court was refused, its judgment isnow the leading authority on the issue.
Police photographyIn May the Court of Appeal found that the Met-ropolitan Police had breached the Article 8privacy rights of our client, a member of theCampaign Against the Arms Trade, who wassubjected to intrusive photography by policeofficers after attending a meeting to criticise acompany for their stance on the sale ofweapons. The police then kept those photo-graphs so that he could be followed atsubsequent political events. The judgment ledthe police to overhaul its procedures on theretention of photographs.
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“The friendly and efficient way inwhich you dealt with my claim ismuch appreciated. I cannot put intowords how grateful I am for thehelp and support you have givenme during the last years... Thankyou so very much.”
Liberty legal client
Our Legal team represent people in cases thatwe believe will have significant implications forthe way that human rights law is applied. Wealso use our expertise to inform other humanrights cases through legal interventions. Hereare just a few of the cases we were involved inthroughout 2009.
Immigration detentionIn March the Court of Appeal allowed ourappeal in a case brought by three mendetained in Harmondsworth ImmigrationDetention Centre at the time of serious distur-bances there in November 2006. The Court ofAppeal held that there should have been aninvestigation into whether the way that thedetainees were treated during the disturbancebreached Article 3, the prohibition on tortureand inhuman or degrading treatment.
Football supportersWe represented supporters of two footballclubs, Stoke City and Plymouth Argyle, in chal-lenges to the use by the police of powersunder section 27 of the Violent Crime Reduc-tion Act 2006. In both cases the police gaveinstructions to entire pub-loads of supportersto leave the area, and we challenged this indis-criminate use of the power. Both police forcesconceded that they had acted unlawfully andpaid our clients compensation. We also
Legal
Forced labourWe represented a woman who had beenbrought into the UK from West Africa andforced to work as a domestic servant for afamily in London. After more than two yearsshe escaped and reported the matter to thepolice, but no proper investigation was carriedout. In response to a claim for judicial reviewthe police accepted that they had breachedArticle 4, the prohibition on slavery, and agreedto reopen the investigation. Our client’semployer now faces criminal charges and thepolice have formally apologised for the failingsin their first investigation.
Enhanced disclosureWe intervened in the first case to come beforethe House of Lords/Supreme Court onenhanced disclosure under the CriminalRecords Bureau system (L v the MetropolitanPolice Commissioner). As well as making legalsubmissions we provided the Court withexamples of inappropriate disclosure from themany people that have contacted us about thisissue over the years. Although L lost her appeal(on whether the police should have disclosedthat her son had been put on the ‘at risk’ reg-ister) the Court made clear that the police mustweigh the competing interests carefully beforedisclosing non-conviction information and thatthere may be circumstances where peopleshould be given the opportunity to make rep-resentations against disclosure.
Detention without chargeIn February the Court of Human Rights handeddown its judgment in the case of A v UK, inwhich we submitted a written intervention. TheGrand Chamber upheld the landmark 2004House of Lords ruling that the detention of for-eign terror suspects without charge was aviolation of Article 5, the right to liberty. Theyfurther held that in a number of cases the obli-gations of procedural fairness were not metbecause evidence relied upon to establish a
threat to national security was withheld fromthe detainees. This ruling led the House ofLords to rule in June that control ordersbreached Article 6, the right to a fair trial,because many ‘controlees’ were not allowedto hear the evidence against them.
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Media
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“Liberty have been crucial inputting civil liberties issues on thenews agenda.”
Diane Abbott MP
Our media work helps to raisepublic awareness of human rightsand civil liberties and keep ourcampaigns in the news.
Punching above our weightLiberty’s media profile is compara-ble to that of much largercampaigning organisations alt-hough we have a fraction of thestaff and resources. Liberty wasmentioned 2,110 times in themedia in 2009 (a 50% increase on 2008) givinga mean average of 40 mentions every week or5 mentions a day.
Reaching across the politicalspectrumTargeted media work means we get our mes-sage out across the political spectrum. In 2009Liberty was mentioned with equal frequency inthe right and left-leaning national press.
Our ability to reach different sections of themedia can also be seen in one of the big newsstories of the year: attacks on the right toprotest peacefully, tragically in evidence at theG20 protest in April. Our comment on thefootage of Ian Tomlinson’s death appeared inThe Guardian and Liberty spokespeople alsowrote articles in The Times and The Sun, andappeared on flagship programmes like BBCBreakfast and Channel 4 News to comment onthe story. We were also working behind thescenes, providing briefings and case studiesthat informed a Panorama documentary onpeaceful protest.
Counteracting spinMuch of our press work involves combatingGovernment spin, something which can beclearly seen in the case of ID cards. The stagedroll-out of ID cards began in 2009, accompa-nied by ministerial claims that the cards wouldbe voluntary. Liberty moved quickly to get the
message into the press that thescheme is still in effect compulsoryand this rebuttal was carried by theTelegraph, Daily Mail, Mirror,Guardian and Independentnewspapers.
Sometimes a powerful case studyis the most effective way of coun-teracting spin, as in the case ofLiberty’s client, Jenny Paton.Jenny’s case gave the lie to Gov-
ernment claims that the Regulation ofInvestigative Powers Act (RIPA) powers wereappropriately ring-fenced. The widespreadcoverage it received was followed by a Gov-ernment announcement of a consultation overthe misuse of RIPA powers by local authorities.
Common ValuesThe media is of paramount importance to Lib-erty’s campaign in defence of the HumanRights Act (HRA) and 2009 saw a number ofnotable successes. Highlights included a col-umn in The Sun by Liberty’s Director dispellingmyths about the Act, a Liberty interview on TheSun’s online radio station and a diary piecewritten for The Observer defending the Act.
We made good use of polling showing over-whelming support for the individual rightswithin the Human Rights Act, and Liberty testcases also provided excellent opportunities forpositive media coverage.
October column in The Sun
Outreach
“Once again you have beenwonderful! I can't thank youenough for your help. It is like alittle light in a dark tunnel...”
Advice service user
A central part of Liberty’s campaigning workis raising awareness; broadening respectand understanding of human rights and theiruniversal application among the generalpublic. We also provide a free legal adviceservice which helps thousands of individualsevery year.
Advice ServiceIn 2009 Liberty’s Advice and Information teamresponded to 3,243 written and telephonerequests from people who wished to knowmore about their rights and the law. The serv-ice helps some of the most marginalisedgroups in society by providing clear, detailedlegal advice for free.
493,922 people also accessed informationthrough Liberty’s legal information website,www.yourrights.org.uk.
By far the most popular section (with threetimes more ‘clicks’ than the average) was thesection explaining the Human Rights Act. Thesecond most popular section was the one thatexplains the Right to Privacy.
Liberty Public Advice Line: 0845 123 2307
Monday and Thursday: 6.30pm to 8.30pmand Wednesday: 12.30pm to 2.30pm
Sharing ExpertiseEvery year Liberty runs numerous workshops,information sessions, seminars and talks on avariety of human rights issues for a wide rangeof audiences including students, practitionersand members of the public.
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In 2009 Liberty’s Advice and Information teamgave a number of talks at schools in Londonand further afield. These talks introduced pupilsto a variety of human rights and civil libertiesissues, including the importance of the HumanRights Act; the blanket retention of DNA takenon arrest; the potential misuses of anti-terror-ism stop and search powers; religioustolerance and race equality in the context ofschool uniform policy; and the unfairness of thecurrent extradition regime.
Liberty lawyers also ran a regular online clinicthrough The Guardian website, answeringqueries about human rights from the generalpublic.
Protest! Your right to speak outIn October Liberty and Index on Censorshipran an event about the right to protest at Lon-don South Bank University. Speakers includingcampaigner Peter Tatchell and Sir Hugh Orde,President of the Association of Chief PoliceOfficers, gave advice and discussed contro-versy over policing tactics, and students fromacross London attended a workshop abouttheir legal right to protest peacefully, as well ashow to stay safe and have fun.
DNA ClinicsWorking with two MPs, Liberty held ‘DNA clin-ics’ in London and Cardiff. We met a numberof people whose DNA samples are beingretained by the police even though they havenot been convicted of an offence, and ourlawyers advised them on how to apply to havetheir samples removed from the National DNADatabase. We are also advising a number ofother people who have contacted us via ourwebsite.
Events
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Liberty’s Anniversary Conference:‘Common Values in a time of crisis’Nearly 600 people came together on a Satur-day morning in June to celebrate Liberty’sanniversary and support our Common Valuescampaign.In an inspirational opening keynote addressLord Bingham of Cornhill tackled the mythsabout the Human Rights Act, and asked“which of these rights… would we wish to dis-card?” In the discussions that followed Lord Chancel-lor Jack Straw, Liberal Democrat leader NickClegg MP, political journalist Kevin Maguire,Tony Benn and Shadow Lord ChancellorDominic Grieve QC laid out their views on ourHuman Rights Act. In the afternoon delegatesattended expert sessions on Terror, Privacy,Free Speech and Protest and Equality. ArtistMark Titchner, fashion designer Vivienne West-wood, journalist Kate Adie and Sun columnistJon Gaunt discussed culture, art and commonvalues.
Zimbabwe: The War on LawLiberty jointly hosted an event with ALBA, theHuman Rights Lawyers Association, and Free-dom Under Law – a Southern African
organisation. We welcomed Beatrice Mtetwa,President of Zimbabwe’s Law Society and ahuman rights lawyer to discuss the law in Zim-babwe.
Protestors Rights ForumTogether with the Law Society and NortonRose law firm, Liberty hosted a discussionforum on the right to protest. In a lively debate,the audience heard from both a climate protes-tor and a lawyer who has obtained injunctionsagainst protestors on behalf of Drax power sta-tion.
Party conferences In the autumn Liberty hosted popular CommonValues themed fringe events at the three mainparty conferences and the Trade Union Con-gress conference. High profile speakers atthese events included Home Secretary AlanJohnson MP, Shadow Home Secretary ChrisGrayling MP, Liberal Democrat leader NickClegg MP, David Davis MP and Diane AbbottMP. We also heard from Unite’s joint GeneralSecretary Tony Woodley, former chair of thePolice Federation Jan Berry and political jour-nalists Kevin Maguire and Peter Oborne.
Extradition Watch LaunchIn 2009 we launched our Extradition Watchcampaign against summary extradition with apanel discussion at Freshfields BruckhausDeringer law firm. Edward Fitzgerald QC,Financial Times Assistant Editor Gillian Tettand Frank Symeou, whose son Andrew hadbeen recently extradited, joined Liberty expertsto discuss the legal issues and the personalimpact of extradition.
Human Rights AwardsLiberty and Justice celebrated InternationalHuman Rights Day on 10 December with ourannual Human Rights Awards, kindly hostedby Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Young lawyer Dan Carey, Dinah Rose QC andthe inspiring Gurkha Justice campaign werewinners from a high calibre list of nominees.
Lord Bingham
Governance
Liberty CouncilAzad Ali
Tish Andrewartha
Lucy Armstrong
Camila Batmanghelidjh
Caspar Bowden
Bill Bowring
Frances Butler (Acting Chair from 17 October 2009)
Louise Christian (Retired as Chair on 17 October 2009 but remained a member of Council)
Madeleine Colvin
Emma Dring
Michael Ellman
Shaheed Fatima
Alexander Gask
Fiona Horlick
Julian Huppert
Peter Kosminsky
Nicola Lacey
Jean Lambert MEP
Doreen Lawrence OBE
Ian Loader
Sarah Ludford MEP
Michael McColgan
Terry McGuinness
Sonali Naik
Nick O'Shea
Deok-Joo Rhee
Rod Robertson
Joanna Shaw
Lee Solomons
Stephen Ward
Mazin Zeki
The following Council Membersretired in 2009Amanda Ariss
Alex Bailin
Barbara Davidson
David Downes
Tim Lezard
Liberty’s Executive Committee (and Board of Directors)Tish Andrewartha
Louise Christian (Retired as Chair and as amember of the Executive Committee 17 October 2009)
Frances Butler (Confirmed as Acting Chairon 11 November 2009)
Madeleine Colvin
Fiona Horlick
Christine Jackson (Civil Liberties Trust)
Doreen Lawrence OBE
Sonali Naik
Nick O'Shea
Rod Robertson
Trustees of the Civil Liberties TrustChristine Jackson (Chair)
The Hon. Susan Baring OBE (Vice Chair)
Tish Andrewartha (Treasurer)
Michael Ellman (Retired October 2009)
Malcolm Hurwitt
Dame Vivienne Westwood
Frances Butler
David Goldstone CBE (Appointed October2009)
Simon Prosser (Appointed October 2009)
Baroness Vivien Stern CBE (AppointedOctober 2009)
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Liberty Financial Report
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Income and expenditure for the year ended 31 December 2009
2009 2008£ £
IncomeGrants, donations and legacies 951,244 917,293Membership subscriptions 492,710 411,376Legal and other earned income 108,872 127,563Interest receivable 976 13,239
Total income £ 1,553,802 £ 1,469,471
ExpenditureResearch projects 5,900 21,370Legal and advice work 254,041 257,731Training and events 72,522 46,633Membership and fundraising 241,296 211,188Campaigns and advocacy 445,788 583,527Management and overheads 418,962 343,498
Total expenditure £ 1,438,509 £ 1,463,947
Balance Sheet as at 31 December 2009
2009 2008£ £
Fixed assets 51,708 64,129Current assets 989,975 718,815Deferred grant income (100,000) –Other creditors (105,295) (61,849)
Net assets £ 836,388 £ 721,095
Restricted funds 41,446 –Unrestricted funds:General fund 467,788 482,910Legacy fund 275,446 174,056Fixed assets reserve 51,708 64,129
Total funds £ 836,388 £ 721,095
Statement from the Board of The National Council for Civil LibertiesThe summarised accounts above have been extracted from the full annual financial statementsof The National Council for Civil Liberties prepared in accordance with the Companies Act 2006,which were approved by the Board on 12 May 2010. The full annual financial statements havebeen audited and the auditors’ opinion was unqualified. They are to be submitted to the Registrarof Companies. These summarised accounts may not contain sufficient information to allow for afull understanding of the financial affairs of the Company. For further information the full financialstatements, the auditors’ report on those financial statements and the Board's annual reportshould be consulted. Copies of these may be obtained from the Secretary at 21 Tabard Street,London, SE1 4LA.
Civil Liberties Trust Financial Report
Income and expenditure for the year ended 31 December 2009
2009 2008£ £
IncomeVoluntary income including legacies 627,506 721,181Investment income – bank interest 14,013 72,613Activities for generating funds 55,553 –Incoming resources from charitable activities 38,350 40,900Other incoming resources – gain on sale of freehold property – 440,460
Total income £ 735,422 £ 1,275,154
ExpenditureCosts of generating funds 25,243 5,949Grants payable to Liberty 538,756 437,509Other charitable expenditure 80,750 30,618
Total expenditure £ 644,749 £ 474,076
Losses on investments £ (2,133) £ (12,138)
Balance Sheet as at 31 December 2009
2009 2008£ £
Fixed asset – freehold property 2,605,076 –Less: Mortgage due after one year (1,423,368) –Less: Mortgage due under one year (47,030) –
1,134,678 –Current assets 1,063,669 1,918,466Creditors excluding mortgage (237,474) (46,133)
Net assets £ 1,960,873 £ 1,872,333
Unrestricted funds:General fund 826,195 621,873New building reserve – 1,250,460Fixed assets reserve 1,134,678 –
Total funds £ 1,960,873 £ 1,872,333
NoteThe above summarised accounts have been extracted from the Charity's unaudited managementaccounts. The full audited statutory report and accounts will be available from the Charity at 21 Tabard Street, London, SE1 4LA after they have been approved on 9 September 2010.
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Thank You
1 Pump Court
11 Kings Bench Walk
39 Essex Street
The 1970 Trust
Allen and Overy
The American Civil Liberties Union
Anti-Slavery International
The Audrey & Stanley Burton CharitableTrust
AW.60 Charitable Trust
Big Lottery Fund
Blackstone Chambers
The British Film Institute
Cheney Peace Settlement
City Parochial Foundation
Clifford Chance
Comic Relief
David Reeve
DNR Films
Doughty Street Chambers
The Evan Cornish Foundation
Foundation Open Society Institute
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Gangmasters Licensing Authority
Garden Court Chambers
Genewatch UK
Herbert Smith
The Ian Mactaggart Trust
Index on Censorship
Inquest
Jesse Norman
Jolanta and Max Neufeld Charitable Trust
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
Justice
MD & IM Newman Charitable Trust
The Mactaggart Third Fund
Matrix Chambers
Melanie Riley
Network for Social Change
No2ID
Oak Foundation
Peter Oborne
The Peter Stebbings Memorial Charity
Philamonic Trust
The Scotshill Trust
The Sigrid Rausing Trust
Simon Callow
Stella Symons Charitable Trust
Tooks Chambers
Unit
Unite
Vivienne Westwood
Will MacNeil
Liberty and the Civil Liberties Trust would like to thank
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Thank you to all our donors who requested to remain anonymous.
Volunteers
Natasha Ahmed
Zahra Al-Rikabi
Jessica Badger
Mary Canham
Tom Cleaver
Laura Coombe
Hannah Couchman
Megan Dean
Leah DeSouza-Jones
Amel Fenghour
Rose Firth
Hannah Gibney
Michelle Green
Lisa Incledon
Isaac Joory
Jay J Kidd-Morton
Alexander Latham
Nicola Lilford
Abie Longstaff
Maria Moodie
Kate Morris
Cian Murphy
Fionnuala Murphy
Philippa Murray
Miles Norris
Warwick Norris
Antoinette Oliver
Charlene Omoko
Sarah Pugh
Kathryn Reece-Thomas
Safiya Roberts
Ceilidh Robertson
Rachel Robinson
Nina Ross
Mariam Shahnaz Razak
Charlotte Stevens
Isabella Tafur
Bindya Tharkar
Louise Williams
Benjamin Witton
Maya Wolfe-Robinson
Alice Woods
Liberty and the Civil Liberties Trust wish tothank all those barristers’ chambers and lawfirms for their invaluable assistance through-out 2009, in providing expert volunteers orundertaking pro-bono work. We would alsolike to thank all those who have contributedindividually with their own time and expertise.
We depend on the support of our membersfor all the work we do, so we’d like to take thisopportunity to say thank you to all our mem-bers, for everything that we achieved togetherin 2009.
Thank you to all our volunteers in 2009
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Thank you to all Liberty’s staff, for their hard work, dedication and commitment.
Liberty (the National Council for Civil Liberties) is a company limited by guarantee. Company registration number: 3260840.
The Civil Liberties Trust is a company limited by guarantee.Charity registration number: 1024948. Company registration number: 2824893.
Liberty & The Civil Liberties Trust 21 Tabard Street, London SE1 4LA
Tel: 020 7403 3888 Fax: 020 7407 5354
www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk
www.yourrights.org.uk
Are you part of the UK movement for human rights? If you are not already a memberof Liberty, please join us today by visiting www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/join
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