Project launch lets students experience 'law in action'
Law students at Cardiff University now have the opportunity to experience ‘law in action’, following the launch of the Cardiff Law School Innocence Project.
Director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, formally launched the project during a public lecture on ‘Human Rights and the Rule of Law’ on 16th February 2006. Shami Chakrabarti became Director of Liberty in 2003 after two years campaigning against repressive anti-terrorist measures following 9/11 as Liberty's Legal Officer. Previously one of the UK's most active barristers, she believes human rights should be at the core of society's value system. Over 200 students, academics and legal professionals attended her lecture.
Cardiff Law School Innocence Project enables students to work with prisoners and solicitors to investigate alleged wrongful convictions. Julie Price, solicitor and tutor at Cardiff Law School, says, ‘this is an innovative teaching method that will enable students to learn what text-books and traditional teaching methods are unable to offer.’ Several local Solicitors' firms and a barrister are already on board to supervise cases alongside students.
65 students, at undergraduate and postgraduate level, completed
a training programme at the School from October to December of 2005
to prepare them for the Project. Sessions included a workshop on
client interviewing, a presentation by the Crown Prosecution Service,
a play by South Wales Liberty highlighting the story of Annette
Hewins and an insight into the experiences of a miscarriage of justice
victim, Michael O’Brien, who spent 11 years in jail for a
murder he didn’t commit.
Dr Michael Naughton, founder of Innocence Network UK, also gave
a session on causes of miscarriages of justice and the wrongful
conviction of the innocent. Before being accepted on to the second
stage of the Project, students independently researched a chosen
area of miscarriages of justice and wrote an essay.
The Project is linked to ‘Innocence Network UK’, which aims to raise public awareness of wrongful convictions, facilitate research on the causes of these convictions and encourage the establishment of innocence projects across the UK. Cardiff is working closely with the University of Bristol Innocence Project and is one of only three Universities with an active Innocence Project to date.
To find out more about Innocence Network UK, please go to: www.innocencenetwork.org.uk.
For further information about the Cardiff Law School Innocence Project,
contact Julie Price on PriceJA1@cf.ac.uk,
or write to her at Cardiff Law School, Museum Avenue, Cardiff CF10
3XJ.
