1987: A LOOK BACK

The ABA and the Soviets

The Independent Task Force on ABA-Soviet Relations this year continued to press for abrogation of the American Bar Association's declaration of cooperation with the Association of Soviet Lawyers.

In February, the Task Force, assisted by Ukrainian, Jewish and human rights groups picketed the ABA's midyear meeting in New Orleans. Prominent former Soviet political prisoners, including Dr. Nina Strokata and Dr. Yuri Yarim-Agaev were brought in to speak about the reality of Soviet justice and Soviet lawyers.

In June, at an ABA-ASL seminar that discussed criminal procedure, independence of the judiciary, religious freedom, alternative dispute resolution and emigration, the Task Force and its supporters tried to raise human rights issues but their efforts were stymied by seminar procedures that did not allow rank-and-file lawyers and members of the press to pose questions to the panelists. Outside, some two dozen demonstrators carried signs condemning the Soviet justice system and demanding that formal ties between the ABA and ASL be severed.

Pressure mounted on the ABA at its annual convention held in San Francisco on August 12-19, as various human rights groups and ethnic organizations again raised their voices in protest. Prominent former Soviet political prisoners Danylo Shumuk, Dr. Anatoly Koryagin and Zakhar Zunshein spoke at a press conference and to the ABA meeting. Ultimately a resolution calling for abrogation of the U.S.-Soviet lawyers' pact failed to get the approval of either the General Assembly or the House of Delegates of the ABA.

After the conclave Mr. Shumuk, who spent more than 30 years in Soviet prisons, camps and "internal" exile, wrote a lengthy letter to ABA president Robert MacCrate outlining his personal experiences with the Soviet legal system in an effort to persuade him that the ABA-ASL agreement is a grave mistake.

"The rule of law... has never been the mark of the Soviet legal system, and it never will be. So long as the Soviet legal system is subordinated to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the party's dictates, and not the rule of law, will govern society," he emphasized.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Independent Task Force on ABA/Soviet Relations, Patience T. Huntwork, Orest A. Jejna and William J. Wolf, pledged to continue their efforts at the next ABA annual meeting in Toronto in August 1988.

In a related development, Ms. Huntwork, who had hoped to travel to Moscow for an unofficial seminar on human rights organized by Press Club Glasnost on December 10-13, has apparently endeared herself to Soviet authorities so much that she was denied permission to even apply for a Soviet visa.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 27, 1987, No. 52, Vol. LV

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