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End of the line for Milosevic
October 02, 2000
Chicago Tribune
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - In March
1991, Slobodan Milosevic ordered
tanks into the center of Belgrade to
crush massive demonstrations
against his rule.
In the winter of 1996-97, when
protestors again took to the streets,
this time for 88 straight days, he
hunkered down and outlasted them.
Two years later, following 78 days
of NATO air strikes and a humiliat
ing retreat from Kosovo, the betting
was that he wouldn't make it through
the winter. But Milosevic circled the
wagons and hung tough.
He has a knack for outliving his
political obituaries.
This time, however, it feels dif
ferent. Even by the highly suspect
figures offered by his own electoral
commission, showing him coming
in second in last Sunday's election,
Milosevic is a beaten man. His sup
porters seem dazed and confused.
The opposition is energized. Their
followers are once again ready to go
into the streets.
"It seems like the psychological
divide has been crossed. They aren't
afraid of him anymore," said Louis
Sell, a former U.S. diplomat in the
Human
by Marjorie Miller
Los Angeles Times
October 02, 2000
LONDON - Although soapbox ora
tors have made Speaker's Corner a
symbol of free speech for much of
the world, their right to hold forth in
Hyde Park is not explicitly guaran
teed in British law.
Similarly, Britain has no equiva
lent of the Fifth Amendment right to
remain silent. Prosecutors have been
allowed to introduce illegally ob
tained evidence in British trials, and
police entrapment is not accepted as
a defense in court.
All of this will change, however,
when the Labor government's Hu
man Rights Act goes into effect Mon
day, incorporating a 50-year-old Eu
ropean convention on human rights
into domestic law and giving Brit
ain what amounts to a bill of rights.
This is a legal revolution for Brit
ain, with far-reaching political impli
cations, say attorneys, civil rights ac
tivists and judicial experts. Over
night, centuries-old British case law
will be superseded by the new bill
outlining the right to life, liberty, free
speech and a fair trial, plus prohibi
tions against torture, slavery and dis
crimination.
"These are all the sort of rights that
America got in its Bill of Rights in
the 18th century," said Julian
Knowles, an attorney with Matrix, a
law firm specializing in human rights
law.
"The idea that people can actually
look up what their basic rights are is
pretty revolutionary here," said
Francesca Klug, a professor of hu
man rights law at King's College,
London. It is both substantive and
symbolic, she said. "It could, in time,
be something the country stands for
beyond the empire, the queen and
other historic things."
But critics say the change will
weaken Britain's system of parlia
mentary democracy, shifting power
from elected representatives to ap-
pointed judges.
Under the Human Rights Act, Brit
ish courts still will not be able to
strike down acts of Parliament in the
way that the U.S. Supreme Court can
throw out a law passed by Congress.
But judges will gain the right to over
turn government regulations and to
tell Parliament when its laws violate
European human rights law.
While that would not be binding
on Parliament, most legal experts be
lieve that such a ruling would force
Westminster to make changes or risk
being taken to court.
"There will be a marked shift in
power, and I am opposed to that,"
said former Home Secretary Michael
Howard, a Conservative member of
Parliament. "You can get rid of us.
You can't get rid of judges."
region who now heads the Interna
tional Crisis Group's office in
Kosovo
The next few days and weeks will
be critical.
Does Milosevic still command the
loyalty of the police and the army?
How they behave toward opposition
supporters who have now taken to
the streets will provide an important
clue, said Sell.
Sources within the opposition
camp are saying that election returns
from both the army and police ran
heavily against Milosevic. If true,
that's a devastating blow for the re
gime.
At last Wednesday's huge demon
stration in the center of Belgrade,
police kept a low profile. "My mes
sage to the army and police is that
we are one," Vojislav Kostunica, pu
tative winner of the presidential
election, told the gathering.
Next to watch for are desertions
from the ruling party. Those closest
to Milosevic and his influential wife,
Mira, will probably hang tight. Sev
eral of them have already been in
dicted by The Hague War Crimes
Tribunal and, like Milosevic, have
few options. But the opposition
claims that defections from the
lower ranks have already started.
Rights law goes into effect in Britain
Many legal observers predict that
a more activist role for judges will,
in turn, raise pressure on the govern
ment to come up with a more open
and independent system for seating
men and women on the bench. Cur
rently, judges are appointed by the
crown on the advice of the Lord
Chancellor - the head of the judiciary,
who is appointed by the prime min
ister - and can only be removed be
cause of misconduct or incapacity.
The incorporation of European hu
man rights law is also likely to af
fect what might be called the
country's legal culture - the way in
which lawyers make their cases and
judges form their decisions. British
law schools have taught their stu
dents to focus on the letter of the law,
but the European Court of Human
Rights in Strasbourg, France, has
ruled that the purpose or intent of a
law also must be taken into account.
This means British lawyers and
judges should be more inclined to
interpret the law.
Critics say the reforms will prove
to be what one Scottish judge called
"a field day for crackpots, a pain in
the neck for judges and a gold mine
for lawyers" - not an improvement
in the country's legal system. They
fear a deluge of lawsuits on behalf
of prisoners, illegal immigrants and
possibly even right-wing extremists
claiming that their rights have been
violated.
Government officials charge that
this is scaremongering. Home Sec
retary Jack Straw noted that in Scot
land, where the convention was
partly incorporated in May 1999,
cases brought under the human rights
convention have largely failed. He
said that in the first year, only 17 of
the 587 cases brought were won by
the claimant.
Critics also view the incorporation
of European human rights law as a
further erosion of British sover
eignty. They see it as part of the un
desirable process of subjugating the
crown to the European Union.
But the human rights convention
is not a product of European Union
lawmakers in Bnissels, Belgium. It
was drafted in large part by Home
Office officials after World War 11,
and many of its tenets, such as the
right to a fair trial, come out of an
Anglo-American tradition.
The convention was signed by
Britain and all members of the Coun
cil of Europe - a larger body than the
European Union - in 1950. The Eu
ropean Court of Human Rights, lo
cated in Strasbourg, has served as a
high court for human rights com
plaints for decades. After running
through the British court system,
Britons could appeal to Strasbourg,
and they often have, bringing about
important policy changes back home.
The British government was
forced to lift its ban on gays and les
INOE r
LE
9- I Af I r
ICIN
Another key will be the way the
state-controlled media reports the
story. State television in particular
has always been a powerful weapon
in Milosevic's hands, but if it begins
to waver in its slavish support of the
regime, it would be a sign of power
slipping from his grip.
For Milosevic, this crisis has arisen
seemingly out of nowhere, the result
of a major miscalculation in calling
for early elections. He had expected
an easy victory over a weak and di
vided opposition; he hoped the results
would lend an aura of legitimacy and
invincibility to the regime.
But the opposition united behind
Kostunica, an obscure and untested
constitutional lawyer who is quickly
proving his mettle, and the elector
ate decided that it had had enough of
Milosevic. The magnitude of the de
feat has sent the ruling party reeling.
"They didn't have a plan for this.
They were caught completely un
awares," said a senior Western dip
lomat. "It says something about
Milosevic's judgment that he is so out
of touch with reality."
By denying Kostunica's first-round
victory, and insisting on a run-off
election next Sunday, Milosevic is
playing for time. He appears to hop
ing he can split the opposition on
bians serving in the military after the
court in Strasbourg piled last year that
it was illegal under the right to pri
vacy and family life.
Caning was banned from all Brit
ish state schools in 1986 as a result of
a case two Scottish mothers took to
Strasbourg. And in 1979, the court
whether to participate in the second
round, or buy them off with some
minor role in the government.
Those tactics worked for him in
1997, but this time the opposition
seems steadfast. Thus far they are
united in their refusal to accept a sec
ond round.
"(Milosevic) doesn't have any op
tions. He does not control the police.
He does not control the army," said
Milan Protic, a key opposition strat
egist. "He is down to bargaining and
negotiations. but we are not ready
to bargain anything."
Its a risky course. Polls indicate
that the opposition would win by an
..ven greater margin in the second
round, hut a boycott of the Oct. 8
ballot could allow Milosevic to
claim victory by default. Also, by
calling for street protests and a gen
eral strike, they give Milosevic a
pretext for calling a state of emer
gency and canceling elections alto
gether.
On the other hand, if the opposi
tion agrees to a second round, they
are, in effect, being drawn into
Milosevic's game -- letting him steal
their first-round victory and giving
him a chance to try to do it again in
the second round.
ruled in a key press freedom case,
overturning a British ban on the pub
lication of an investigation by The
Sunday Times newspaper on the ter
rihle effects of the drug thalidomide
on unborn children.
Many Britons felt that hearing such
British cases in Strasbourg amounted
Is there hope for hemp?
Sil DeChellis, 62, is treasurer of the Free Hemp in Alaska
campaign. The group is trying to get an initiative passed in the
November election to legalize marijuana.
to airing the country's dirty laundry
in public, and that if the government
was going to be overruled it should
be in domestic courts.
As a candidate for prime minister,
Tony Blair argued for incorporating
the European convention on moral
grounds: Britain supported the rights
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2000
enshrined in the convention it had
signed and so the rights should be
embodied in domestic law. Soon af
ter taking office in May 1997, his
government passed the Human
Rights Act now going into effect.