How to self represent in court

Start: Sunday, December 03, 202310:00 AM

End: Sunday, December 03, 202311:00 AM

How to self represent in court

Join Violet CoCo and Brad Homewood as they offer first steps on how to self represent in court.

Self repping is where you act on your own behalf in the court. That is, you are you, and you speak from yourself and you 'represent yourself' without a lawyer.

There are a few things to understand that help. The court has rules and boundaries.

Self repping has some important advantages for us as a movement.

When we self represent we can say things that a lawyer may not be able to, as it is outside the normal workings of criminal law. For example, we can bang on about how bad the climate emergency is and how deadly it is and how important civil resistance is, where as most lawyers would only stick to the facts – whether you were or were not in fact sitting on the road.

It is empowering to speak for yourself and you know your story best.

It can help bring empathy to the magistrate if they have to address you directly, especially as a spokesperson.

We become an active participant in the court, trying different moves. When we stay active we find things out, we learn, and we are fully participating. There are opportunities for empowerment. There are few other things we do where we let system oriented players take over, silence us and tell us what to say and do!

When 100 people get arrested, it can be hard to find 100 lawyers to represent everyone.

When 100 people get arrested, sometimes they want the system to treat them as individuals – not as a 'one faced collective', as if they were an organisation.

The judicial system affects us somewhat differently from others. We have to ensure that lawyers understand the unique effects of the CJ System on us as individuals and us as a collective.

Self repping can help us to move quicker through the system.

Sometimes a movement friendly lawyer is simply not available when you need them – after hours, in another movement, on weekends, or on holidays.

In some instances, you can virtually get a retrial if you made a mess of representing yourself – that is a sort of appeal. 'I’m sorry, I’ve changed my mind, I want to do that all again with a lawyer.'