THE EXCESSES OF the Kadar Government in Hun- gary and
the extraordinary 'Treason' trials in Johannesburg have done one useful thing: they have brought Conservative and Labour lawyers together to form an organisation to protect Human Rights. JUSTICE, whose establishment has recently been announced, includes representa- tives nominated by the Association of Liberal Lawyers; the Council also has several prominent members from the universities who, I should guess, had no political affiliations. It has not been easy to reach agreement about a com- mon basis for an all-party organisation, although for years lawyers have been complaining that the only body in the field, the National Council of Civil Liberties, had fallen under Communist in- fluence. Three years ago, I am told, an attempt was made to set up a joint Tory/Socialist law- yers' organisation to implement the Council of Europe's Declaration of Human Rights, which was largely drafted by the present Lord Chancel- lor. But when the Government, of which Lord Kilmuir was a member, heard about the proposal,
which included insistence upon the observance of the minimum safeguards laid down by the declaration in all the territories to which it applied, there was a flutter in the dovecotes—for the Government had signed the declaration in respect of forty-two colonial territories. The sug- gestion that the new body should confine its attentions to the 'mother island' did not appeal to the promoters, and the scheme broke down.
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