Speak, Silence by Kim Echlin

Author:Kim Echlin [Echlin, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780735240629
Google: 2b3pDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

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At the beginning of the trial there were unexpected delays and hours to fill. I installed a long telephone cord in my apartment so I could pace. I read international law history and old court cases. The new court’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence had taken nine months to write and I read them too. Everything was in the Peace Palace law library. I was much alone. I read about the presiding judge, Gladys Banda from Zambia, and about Judge Jack Smith from Australia and Judge Matteo Romano from Italy. In a world with few female judges I was especially fascinated by Judge Banda, who was the first woman in her family to be educated. She had switched to law school when she discovered there was no theology department at her university and found that she liked law. She was the only woman in her class. She taught, worked for the UN on the status of women, was a judge in Lusaka. I wondered who she was under the heavy gowns, under the rational reflection and tamped-down emotion. She had said in one interview that the reason she could have five children and her busy career was because of her husband. Gladys Banda believed every schoolchild should be actively taught how to make unpopular moral decisions, and to work through the logic behind them and to practise defending them. She said that her father, a villager with a grade-school education, always told her and her sisters and brothers, You have to look after wealth, but knowledge looks after you. I wondered how many rape trials Judge Banda had presided over in a place where traditional healers told men that sex with young girls, even relatives, would bring them health and success. Her favourite novel was Woman at Point Zero. I thought about the energy of this woman who had let nothing stand in her way, who had ruled on kikondo and witchcraft. She was ambitious. She would have to control a difficult and emotional courtroom. In another interview she had said, I am a good judge because I have been subjected to undue scrutiny. I am not talking about race but about being a woman.

Then the interviewer asked whether being a woman affected her views of areas of the law concerning women.

Judge Banda answered, Does being a man change his views on areas of law pertaining to men? The law is for everyone. A judge brings all their experiences to their work. If they have experienced discrimination—as a woman—they will be sensitive to its subtle expressions. A judge is the human conduit of the law.

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