How to use the courts?

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THERE are a number of points which in my view John O Mahony tails to resulve in his critique of Militant's threat to use the murts. We need to distinguish between the particular way in which Militant threatens to use the law and the use of the law in such disputes in general:

In spite of their statement that they don't see the courts as a substitute political fight, O'Mahony is right to point out that Militant in fact do see the court as a substitute. This is perfectly clear from their initial attempts at compromise and from their failure as yet to work with the broad CLP left in a united fightback.

But does this mean that the use of the courts cannot in principle be an adjunct to the political struggle for democracy in the labour movement? I think not.

It is important to win time to mobilise and organise the forces of the left against Golding and Co. A court case is also an arena where a political case can be made and can reach a broad public for the right of all socialists to organise in the Labour Party. It can be made into effective public forum.

The right can only achieve their goals by violating their own legality, the use of the law by the left could be an, effective weapon for directly resisting their moves as well as for helping to mobilise support against them.

This is not to say that resort to the courts will necessarily 'work' • 1 do not share O'Mahony's faith in the "high level of iustice and impartial dealing within existing laws" which British courts are meant to show. Tell that ,to the defendants in Brixton or to the GLC!

We can never rely on them but we should know how to use them when the LABOUR Committee on Ireland: annual general meeting 1983 will be on March 26. Resolutions to be in bi February 27. There will be an extended meeting of the LCI National council on January 22.

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occasion calls: not , lkt Militant as technical substitute but as a complement to our own politicai struggies. If the bureaucrats later got for a blanket ban on Militant, then we should see what, if any, use the bourgeois courts could be in opposing that ban.

The immediate situation, however, is one in which the measures taken by the right are of doubtful legality.

The main point perhaps is whether in principle the courts should ever be used in fights within the labour movement. Trotsky -advice to use the courts against the Stalinist secret police in labour movements betore the war, O'Mahony says, doesn't count, because the Stalinists were "alien" to those movements, in a way in which Golding is not alien to the British labour movement.

Certainly there are differences. To my knowledge Golding hasn't literally brought out the knives yet. But Stalinists were unfortunately well entrenched in many European labour movements and cannot be considered a purely alien force.

In one of Lenin's letters to Gorky he wrote:

"With respect to P (the manager of a publishing house) 1 am for the court. There is no reason to stand upon ceremony. Sentimentality would be unforgivable. Socialists are by no means against the Crown's (Tsarist) court.

'We are for the use of legality. Marx and Brbel turned to the Crown's courts even against their socialist opponents. It is necessary to know how to do this and it is necessary to do it."

The trouble with Militant is not that they are doing it but they don't know how to do it in a socialist way.

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