Justice Today: Human Rights Since Emancipation
About Agathe Holowatinc
Agathe manages the firm’s library and information centre, provides legal research and reference services and delivers training in the use of print and online resources to the firm’s attorneys and pupils. She also coordinates the firm’s marketing and public relations programme, leads the design and development of the firm website, Bermuda Law Blog and MJM Quarterly Newsletter, and oversees IT operations.
Agathe Holowatinc’s full profile on mjm.bm.
On July 10, 2014, the Centre for Justice presented a conference entitled “Justice Today: Human Rights Since Emancipation” which commemorated the 180 years that have passed since Emancipation in Bermuda.
The conference was organized as part of the Centre’s mandate to promote education in the areas of human rights, civil liberties and administration of justice and to foster civic engagement.
Chief Justice Ian Kawaley was the keynote speaker at the event, held at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute in Hamilton. Members of the public were invited to submit essays to Centre for Justice and to participate in the conference.
Themes that could be considered in the papers were wide-ranging and included:
- Race
- Women’s issues
- Sexual orientation
- Gender identity and expression
- Disability
- Age
- Non-Bermudians / Long-Term Residents
- Migrant workers
- Poverty & Socio-economic rights
- Children’s rights
- Any other suggested topic
Since the conference marked the 180th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Bermuda and looked at the development of human rights since the British Government ordered an end to slavery in 1834, papers were meant to examine society’s current social fabric. Entrants were asked to investigate, as a sub-theme, the question: “how equal are we/how just are we.”
Two MJM attorneys submitted papers to the Centre for Justice.
Peter Martin, Director at MJM, submitted a paper entitled “The Dynamic Pull of the Future” which he was invited to present at the conference, alongside a panel of local and overseas experts in the field of human rights and justice. Peter has a MSc. (Human Rights) from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a LL.B. (Hons) from the University of Manchester. He leads the corporate and finance group at MJM and has been active in the modernization of Bermuda’s company and partnership laws for many years, but he also takes interest in human rights and rule of law issues. Peter’s paper will be published in the journal of all successful essays.
Litigation Associate Kimberley D. Caines also submitted a paper to the Centre for Justice entitled “A look at Women in the Legal Profession: How equal are we, 180 years on?” Kimberley majored in Women’s Studies and Spanish language and literature at the University of Western Ontario, where she completed her B.A. (Hons) before going on to law school. Just last year, she was recognized as a “Rising Star” by The Bermudian magazine in a feature called Rising Stars: Nine shining Gen-Yers who have set their sights high in the business world and are working their way to the top. Kimberley’s paper will be published in the journal of all successful essays.
Centre for Justice is a non-governmental, non-profit, non-partisan organization whose aim is to promote the rule of law, human rights and civil liberties in Bermuda in accordance with the Bermuda Constitution and the rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments such as the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.