By Mary Greer
Like thousands of others in the legal community, I was lucky enough to have a friend in Judge Pat Wald. Judge Pat was also a huge friend to the ABA, especially to CEELI (now ROLI), and to countless organizations and individuals fighting for justice all over the world. Her words--especially her legal opinions and judgments—were exacting, thoroughly and thoughtfully reasoned, succinct, and sometimes controversial—indeed changed history and improved people’s lives, but her deeds also spoke volumes, illustrative of her dedication, commitment and caring.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of Berlin Wall, both Judge Pat and her wonderful husband Bob, working with CEELI and other organizations, brought expertise and hope to justice actors in many of the newly independent countries. Former CEELI Country Director, Nick Mansfield, recalled with much fondness their trip to Sarajevo just after the Dayton Agreement was signed. Not so many years later, Nick hired me to go work on criminal justice reform for CEELI in Bosnia. I first met Judge Pat, who had served on our board for years, right after the announcement of her appointment to the ICTY at the CEELI Annual Meeting in Prague, which had been moved from Sarajevo due to the Kosovo bombings. By then, many of us posted in the Balkans had grown pretty strongly attached to the region, and to the brave and the understandably wounded souls we had met there. We were also completely frazzled by the bombings and evacuations of our offices in Belgrade and Banja Luka. I remember shyly introducing myself to Judge Pat, thanking her for agreeing to wade into some pretty horrible cases involving a country I already deeply cared about, and wishing her well—to which she replied, in her typical disarming deadpan candor “I’ll need it.” I spent another couple years in the Balkans, and then was posted with the Coalition for International Justice (CIJ) as a liaison at the ICTY. I was lucky enough to succeed the respected and infinitely appreciated Heather Ryan (also a former CEELI liaison in Bosnia), and land in Den Haag on the same day as Judge Pat’s interim clerk, internationally esteemed jurist and gender specialist Kelly Askin—both of whom were kind enough to re-introduce me to Judge Pat. The biggest bonus of that posting was to get to know Judge Pat personally, and, of course, watch her in action. She came to the ICTY with a revered judicial record, but it also quickly became obvious to me that she was also well seasoned with other critical judicial qualities: temperance, tact, humility, common sense and compassion. Along with two other judges, she presided over two rotating trials at once—one of which (Krstic) was the high profile very first genocide trial, and both of which had extremely complicated fact bases and volumes of testimonial and documentary evidence to consider. She quickly became known among those of us monitoring the trials as the “EF Hutton judge”—i.e. when Judge Pat talked, we ALL listened—whether it was rulings on objections, or questions of witnesses permitted under ICTY’s hybrid rules allowing judges to ask nearly anything of a witness after the attorney’s had finished. Her incisive questions and comments reflected her judicial experience and brilliance, but her compassion and respect for the victims and their loved ones as she delved into their testimony shown even brighter, or, as President Obama so eloquently noted as he honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Judge Pat “helped unveil the humanity within the law.”
Over the course of my posting, my office, located in the public lobby of the Tribunal, become a meeting place of sorts as one of the few places in the building where different justice actors could meet informally with each other (the judicial chambers were sealed off from the prosecution, and the defense attorneys had no offices or lounge on site). It didn’t hurt that I kept a hearty stock of wine, along with hot treats I would serve out of a toaster oven Judge Pat had graciously bequeathed. Near the end of her tenure, sitting in the appellate chamber on the Kupreškić case, Judge Pat presided over a panel that controversially decided to vacate the convictions of three Croatian fighters linked to an attack on a Muslim village, and reduced the sentences of two others. After the Kupreškić judgement was announced, Judge Pat showed up in my office, unannounced, and sat with those who were trying to sift through the judgement (the summary alone of the 209 page decision was 15 pages), including the journalists. Judge Pat sat patiently and expertly explained the ruling, and fielded questions. There was no impropriety or talking out of school-just being helpful and accessible--in her words and in her actions.
 |
| Mary sits alongside Pat underneath a photograph of Slobodan Milosevic's arrest. |
CIJ secured funding to assist justice actors back in the Balkans garner greater expertise in investigating and trying war crimes cases domestically. I recruited experts from the office of the prosecution, as well as the investigative staff, for the trainings, but it proved hard to secure the participation of a judge. I found out Judge Pat was going to be in Zagreb for another conference, so I scheduled our Croatia workshop around her schedule. In the end, though, her other commitments overtook, but Judge Pat was undeterred, spending over an hour being driven across a crowded city in rush hour to attend the end of our workshop, only having at most 45 minutes with the judges. But it was, without a doubt, the best 45 minutes of the workshop. Judge (EF Hutton) Pat held the rapt attention of the participants the entire time, not lecturing as much as engaging with them on legal issues, but, more importantly, acknowledging and commiserating about the challenges of trying cases that are high profile, controversial, politically sensitive and sometimes not strong enough to render convictions on. She was, indeed, a judge’s judge, but had also sat through enough testimony at the ICTY to know how horrible the offenses were, and how challenging it was for these judges to try these cases in their own communities.
My friendship with Pat, blossomed over delightful weekend escapes to Leiden, Gouda, Gent, and yes, embarrassingly, to what turned out to be a horribly tacky Christmas market in Valkenburg, filled with velvet Elvis paintings and cheap ornaments (sorry Pat--while your law clerks always conducted thorough research, your travel clerk fell short—at least the German beer was good). She opened her wardrobe to me, and jewelry box, after finding out I had absolutely nothing to wear to a real deal Vienna Ball, and thanks to her great taste, I looked sophisticated and stylish. And speaking of great taste, Judge Pat gifted to me some of my most tasteful flamingos, including a silk scarf, which I intentionally wore the day I met the Commercial Court (woman) judge in Liberia. She now knows all about Judge Pat.
 |
| Mary wears the scarf that Pat gave her alongside a Liberian judge. |
When Bob visited, we discovered we were both closet pool sharks, so on several occasions we crossed town to some pretty shady spots in some not so great neighborhoods—Pat sipping wine while Bob and I played 8 ball. Bizarrely, in the middle of a friendly match, I heard someone call my name, and looked up to see a delegation of Bosnian’s at the tavern door, in Den Haag for a conference. I think Judge Pat and Bob were almost as delighted as the Bosnian’s were for the chance encounter.
Once we were both in DC, I, and others at the ABA, imposed on Pat numerous times, for her expertise and support—whether assisting with international justice standards, or meeting with delegations. One day, out of the blue, I got a call from a US Patent Attorney, who told me that a friend, Judge Slavica Curic, had just flown in, all the way from Bosnia, for a patent training, and was thoughtfully trying to track me down. I called Judge Pat at the very last minute, and my friend Nina Bang-Jensen (who headed CIJ), who dropped everything and, over wine and cheese, spent several hours listening and engaging with and encouraging Judge Curic, who told me just months ago that she appreciates those words of encouragement to this day.
 |
| Per Mary's request, Pat offers encouragement to an attorney and judge. |
In a lovely article after her death Linda Greenhouse quoted Judge Pat: “We write what we are, and perhaps, more than others, judges are what they write.” By her words and by her actions, Judge Pat’s unwavering commitment to the rule of law, and pursuit of justice and fairness for all, impacted and bettered the lives of countless individuals all over the world. And brought some sense of accountability and closure to those we care so deeply about in the Balkans. Judge Pat’s legacy demands that in these fragile and unpredictable times, we double down on our commitment to all she stood for. And we will. But we will miss you terribly.
Mary Greer is a Senior Criminal Law Advisor for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of ABA ROLI.
Comments
Post a Comment