Building a Better Truth Commission

Lisa Laplante has a new article in print: Transitional Justice and Peace Builduing: Diagnosing and Addressing the Socioeconomic Roots of Violence Through a Human Rights Framework, 2 Int’l J. Transitional Justice 331 (2008).  (Subscribers can download a copy from the journal’s website.)  In recent years, many nations have used “truth commissions” to ease the transition from oppressive to more democratic regimes: the commissions investigate and report about human rights abuses in the old regime, with the idea that an honest accounting of the past may facilitate reconciliation and reform.  However, as Lisa observes, there are distressing signs of renewed civil unrest and violence in a number of nations that have employed truth commissions, including Chile, South Africa, and Guatemala.  In her article, Lisa argues that the mission of truth commissions ought to be reconceived such that the commissions would address a broader range of human rights violations, including violations of economic, social, and cultural rights.  Social conflict and violence are often connected to deep-seated socieconomic inequalities.  If truth commissions do not recognize a human rights dimension to these inequalities, Lisa suggests, then they will fail to get at the root cause of the more traditional types of human rights violations on which they have focused their attention.  And failing to address root causes means that social conflict may continue unabated, despite all of the effort otherwise put into achieving reconciliation.

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Ecclesiastical Immunity

Last month, a trial court in Connecticut applied the ministerial exception to dismiss a defamation claim brought by a charitable organization against the Catholic bishop of Connecticut. In brief, the vicar of a Connecticut parish had organized a charity in his native Tanzania and, among other things, raised funds for it from his congregation. The Bishop apparently came to believe that the charity was beset by financial irregularities and, after first ordering the priest to stop raising money for it, removed him as vicar. The Bishop then sent a letter and spoke to parishioners telling them that the charity was ineffectively managed and engaged in questionable financial practices.

The priest’s action against the diocese (alleging, among other things, racial discrimination) was dismissed based upon the ministerial exception. No surprise there.

The charity then sued the Bishop for tortious interference and defamation. As noted above, these claims were also dismissed based upon the ministerial exception. The exception has been applied in contexts other than claims based upon employment. In my home state of Wisconsin, for example, it has been applied to claims for the negligent hiring, retention and supervision of priests who committed sexual abuse.

But should it be applied here?

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What’s New in the Classroom: Lawyerly Presentations in IIP

I spent the past few months pondering how to improve and experiment with the use of student presentations as part of my teaching in small and medium-sized classes.  Since I started teaching, I have been using presentations in most upper-level classes, not just seminars.  I have always believed that law schools should train students as public speakers, but, apart from extracurricular activities, such as moot court, not much of this training is really done. Yet, future lawyers will have to stand and present in many ways, not just to judges, but often to clients, other lawyers, fellow classmates, and CLE attendees.  And students usually like presentations very much (maybe they are happy to get a break from the professor!), so I always found it natural to build upon and use this interest as a useful tool in my role of legal educator.

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