Battling for justice
07 November 2014
This is the celebration of a double first, I am celebrating the completion of my first month at the helm of ERRC, and this marks my very first ever blog entry. You may think I am being frivolous, I assure you that I am not. At this mature stage in my life I have seen and done quite a few things, so for me a first is a rare and precious thing, let alone a double first.
I am really moved and grateful, that the ERRC board, in its wisdom has chosen me to be the new Executive Director of the organization. I feel very honoured to follow in the footsteps of Dimitrina Petrova, Rob Kushen and Dezideriu Gergely, to mention those I know personally among my predecessors. And I am honoured to work for this venerable institution, this flagship of Roma rights. I will rely on all your support to ensure that I succeed in maintaining the high standards set by my predecessors. I do not suppose for a moment that we could single-handedly achieve emancipation for the Roma - only Roma can emancipate themselves. But together we have vital resources and skills to make a valuable contribution to this process.
I am not entirely new to Roma rights, having actually founded Chance for Children Foundation in Hungary. In our struggle to abolish school segregation to ensure that Roma children have access to quality education, our idea was to emulate the African-American strategy which led to Brown vs the Board of Education. And indeed when our dear friend Jack Greenberg, one of the lawyers active on that case, paid us a visit, he confirmed that this was the right way to go.
When a person, or group of people has no access to the legislative and the executive pillars of democracy, their remaining recourse is the judiciary. And believe me, there is nothing so sweet as to defeat the segregators in Court; to be vindicated in the cool, elegant and precise language of lawyers - language which so starkly contrasts with the crude propaganda, hate speech and hypocritical waffle we are more accustomed to hearing in defence of the indefensible. Without a doubt it was hard work, but the past ten years battling in Court was also enjoyable and fulfilling. I greatly look forward to more years in many more jurisdictions and Courts with the considerably bigger firepower ERRC represents.
