#Publicdisco Special Edition: From Crisis to Empowerment

MOVE ON UP 🧡🖤💛 FROM CRISIS TO EMPOWERMENT 🤎💚💙 MOVE ON UP 💖🤍💜

This page is for tickets to the in-person event on 19th April.  Please join us in person if you can.  Otherwise, the page for the online version is here.
PLEASE NOTE: Bookings for the in-person event close Tuesday 16th April at 4pm.   

A special edition of our anti-discrimination conference, co-produced by community activists using the law to fight discrimination and uphold their rights. This edition of #publicdisco will share best practice of using the law as a tool for change, and raise awareness of the struggles and wins experienced by communities and activists using the law to get themselves heard. For short biographies of our panel of co-producers, please see after the programme below.

The event is produced with the kind support of Allen and Overy and Matrix Chambers, and is hosted by A and O in Central London.

The event is for:

• Community activists and campaigners fighting discrimination by public bodies and Government
• Lawyers and advisers
• Policy people and researchers

The event’s goals are:

• Increased understanding between community groups, activists and those in the legal and charity sectors
• Networking and collaboration
• For communities to learn more about using the law to challenge discrimination
• For lawyers to learn more about communities needs and community lawyering best practice

Tickets – this page is for the in person event only.  If you wish to attend online only, tickets are here.

Free tickets: These are for community activists and campaigners who are not employed by a funded group, or are part of an organization that has very low funds. We ask for a £10 deposit, refundable in cash on the day when you attend. If you require this to be waived, please make a request to [email protected]
Low cost tickets: (£50) These are for smaller organizations with funding up to £400,000 (or thereabouts)
Discounted tickets: (£90) For NGOs, trainees, voluntary sector organisations with a turnover more than £400,000
Full price tickets: (£140) For those in private practice or from organizations with turnover over £750,000

• This event is hybrid. Tickets for the online version are here.  We do think the best experience will be in person, so do try to join us if at all possible.
• All in-person tickets include lunch, beverages, and the reception after the event.
• Every in-person ticket application will require those attending to say why you want to be there.

Accessibility and safeguarding:

• Speech To Text Reporting (STTR) will be provided in a live feed with all participants given a link to this the day before. Please ensure you bring a device to access this.
• A trauma counsellor is available and a quiet space, for anyone experiencing anxiety or well-being issues during the event.

Programme:

9.45 Opening session: Is the law the answer to injustice?
An Interview with community activists Voices – untold story, talking about their legal challenge to their local authority’s policies criminalizing sex workers and endangering women. Amanda and Susan will discuss how the challenge grew, and how strategies, including campaigning, worked alongside a legal case. They’ll also discuss the challenges faced by a community doing this work, with individuals often facing multiple disadvantages, and how communications during and after such action are of such importance.  Followed by Q and A with the audience.

• Amanda Hailes and Susan Winter, Voices
• Interviewed by PLP’s Director, Shameem Ahmad

10.45 What the f*** does that mean? A beginner’s guide to judicial review
A guide to understanding the law and legal processes involved in challenging the decision making of Government and public bodies through the courts. Our panelists will demystify language and processes like who has standing, the pre-action protocol and legal terms such as ultra vires, irrationality and proportionality. We will also look at understanding court documents, and how a good solicitor or lawyer will work and communicate with community groups and activists. You will be encouraged to question our presenters.

• Aoife O’Reilly (Chair) & Hannah Moxsom, Public Law Project
• Darryl Hutcheon, Matrix Chambers
• Unkha Banda, Deighton Pierce Glynn
• Ellen Clifford, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)

11.45 Break: drinks and snacks

12.00 – 13.30 Breakout sessions. Please choose one of three below:

1. Influencing law and policy
This session will look at using research, campaigns, private members bills, amendments, and legal interventions to influence policy, with a focus on lived experience and peer led research informing action. The resource gap between what long-established civil society organisations have available to them compared with community and user-led groups is vast. So, when it comes to informing and influencing decision-makers, how do we level the playing field?

• Chair: Saba Shakil, Public Law Project
• Verity Nevitt, The Gemini Project
• Chris Brill and Shannon Johnstone, Expert Link
• David Siesage, Allen and Overy
• Adis Sehic, Work Rights Centre
• Lee Marsons, Public Law Project

2. Identifying discrimination
This session looks at how you identify discrimination by public bodies, and what you can do about it using both public law, and some elements of private law (such as compensation claims) when these two areas may overlap. The session will also look at a project using Pre Action Protocol (PAP) letters to challenge unlawful decision making by public bodies. The session will assume little legal knowledge, but will be of use to junior lawyers / trainees etc.

• Chair: Eleanor Finlay, Disability Law Service
• Raj Desai, Matrix Chambers
• Clare Hayes, Deighton Pierce Glynn
• Svetlana Kotova, Inclusion London

3. Community legal strategies
This session looks at NGOs developing legal and rights-based strategies with their respective communities. Southwark Law Centre will discuss their project working alongside grassroots organisations , such as SIRG, to assist children and young people from the black community who are excluded from school. Central England Law Centre will outline the development of their Rights in Community Strategy with the organisation Grapevine.  Public Interest Law Centre will talk to their Gentrification Project ‘Access to justice in the class-based transformation of space’ including their work with Focus E15 housing campaign.”

• Chair: Clare Cruise, Southwark Law Centre
• Saskia O’ Hara, Public Interest Law Centre
• Jasmin Stone, Focus E15 housing campaign
• Sabrina Dixon, Social Inclusion Recovery Group (S.I.R.G)
• Naomi Madden, Grapevine
• Emma Austin, Central England Law Centre

13.30  – 14.30 LUNCH

14.30 – 15.45 Breakout sessions. Please choose one of three below:

1. Discrimination, language and communications
How can we use language better to avoid re-enforcing discrimination and promote inclusivity? Speakers will address the Social Model of Disability as a positive example of language change as a response to structural injustice. Migrants’ Rights Network will talk to their Words Matter campaign, exploring the ramifications of language use, and to show solidarity with migratised communities by challenging harmful narratives. The session will also look to consider language use concerning race, social class and poverty, the LGBT + community, and other communities for whom the dynamic and disputed nature of language can either enforce harm or promote tolerance and inclusivity. You will be encouraged to join in!

• Tracey Lazard, Inclusion London
• Fizza Qureshi & Julia Tinsley-Kent, Migrants Rights Network
• Nic Cook, Difference North East

2. Protest rights
This session will look at protest rights, police behaviours and criminalisation, especially where discrimination may be an issue.  Not1more will talk to their recently launched protest injunctions Toolkit. 

• Anna Birley, Reclaim These Streets
• Danielle Manson, Matrix Chambers
• Ife Thompson, BLAM UK and Garden Court Chambers
• Josie Argyle, Not1more

More speakers TBC

3. Discrimination and migration
This session looks at supporting vulnerable migrants, and at areas where equality law can help migrants access appropriate care, support and accommodation, and challenge inappropriate treatment.  Sarah Maramag of The3Million will discuss how discrimination resonates in their community lawyering work, and their own experience with community activism.  We’ll also hear from Shpresa’s youth group, representing the Albanian speaking community in the UK.

• Nick Armstrong KC, Matrix Chambers
• Brian Dikoff, Legal Organiser, Migrants Organise
• Sarah Maramag, Community Organiser, The3million
• Shpresa youth group

15.45 – 16.00 Break: more coffee / snacks

16.00 – 16.45 Human Rights: Not a game
This session will be facilitated by Just Fair, and some of the co-designers and co-owners of Human Rights: Not a game, a card game designed by and for activists and communities exploring everyday human rights and how they are not being met. We will break into groups in the main space, with each group facilitated with a view to making the game and play as accessible as possible. The facilitators include:
• Nic Cook, Difference North East
• Laura Grace, Just Fair

16.45  Closing panel: Making the law accessible
How can we address gaps in people’s knowledge about their rights to help empower communities to take action?

• Chair: Ernest Ulaya, Migrants Rights Network Ambassador
• Carlyn Miller, British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR)
• Christian Weaver, Garden Court North (Author: The law in 60 seconds)
• Timi Okuwa, Black Equity Organisation (BEO)

17.45 Finish and Drinks reception

Sessions planned online after the event (speakers and timings TBC)

25 April Discrimination in welfare benefits
Speakers and exact timings TBC

Our Co-producing Committee are:

• Amanda Hailes and Susan Winter, campaigners from An Untold Story – Voices, a collective of women with lived experience of street sex working in Hull, and allies.
• Ernest James Ulaya is the Ambassador and advisor of Migrants Rights Network. He is a researcher, founder and host of the Voices of Hope podcast.
• Ellen Clifford is a writer and campaigner for Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), and the author of The War on Disabled People.
• Kehinde Adeogun is Director of Legal Services and Policy at Black Equity Organisation – BEO .
• Verity Nevitt is co-founder of  The Gemini Project a UK based non-profit organisation working to end sexual violence through advocacy, education and campaigns. 

With the kind support of Matrix Chambers and Allen and Overy