Wednesday, June 15, 2011

June 6-9

Monday, June 6   This was Nancy's last full day in Ulan Baatar and I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. I met with Chimge about the student law clinic, and particularly about case selection criteria. I drafted a short memorandum on the form of the case report that the students were to prepare, and then Nancy and I went to the National Museum, before going out to dinner with the CHRD staff, two representatives of the NGO Forum on the Asian Development Bank and Dan Werner, who, on behalf of the American Bar Association, will be co-presenting a seminar with CHRD at the end of the week.
At dinner, I had a long talk with Avilash Roul, the Executive Director  of the NGO Forum, about economic development issues and privatization. The main purpose of his organization is to ensure that the Asian Development Bank acts responsibly with respect to economic development loans in developing countries. Avilash and his colleague Maya were in Ulan Baatar for a two day conference regarding development issues associated with foreign aid. 

Tuesday, June 7  I went to the airport to see Nancy off in the morning, and then came back to the apartment, before putting on a business suit to attend the last session of the foreign aid conference. In theory, we were going to have simultaneous translation, with a translator speaking into a sound system for the three of us who only understood English and did not speak Mongolian (Avilash, who is originally from India, and is now based in the Philippines, a representative of the United Nations permanently stationed in Ulan Baatar, and myself). However, the sound system did not work, and we had to huddle around the translator to hear as best we could.

The focus of the discussion was the lack of information regarding foreign aid proposals. CHRD's representative made a presentation regarding the issue, identifying the question of what information is needed, and the need for continuing dialogue with the government. A number of questions were directed to a representative of the Ministry of Finance regarding the availability of information from the government and, for the most part, his responses were what one would expect of a government bureaucrat.
In the evening, I was invited to “go out drinking” with CHRD staffers, Avilash and Dan. It was my first experience drinking Chinggis beer - which I would recommend, both light and dark. 

Wednesday, June 8 I had promised Chimge a variety of memoranda, on the use of the Freedom of Information Law in the United States, the concept of a law of evidence (in Mongolia, where the judge is the trier of fact, the judge apparently decides what evidence will be accepted and how it should be weighed on an ad hoc basis ) and on miscellaneous legal issues. I did these memoranda on Wednesday morning.

 The student clinic meets on Wednesday, and we had scheduled a training session from an Australian lawyer with extensive experience in negotiating settlements with mining companies. What I did not know was that her presentation was scheduled for the morning, rather than the afternoon when we had previously done student clinic meetings. As a result,  I only saw the end of the training session, which I had been looking forward to seeing, since I was very curious about the experience of communities negotiating settlements with international mining companies. 

After the meeting, I went back to the office and did various research for the afternoon, before going to the square in the evening to play chess, which as noted elsewhere on the blog, was videotaped by Dan, and the videos are on youtube.

Thursday, June 9  Dan and I had both wanted to see a Mongolian court session, and Chimge took us to the civil court, where we observed a case. The trustee of the bank that had filed for bankruptcy itself was suing to collect an outstanding debt, plus interest. The defendant appeared pro se.  Before the case began he said that he did not need a lawyer; after the case was over and he lost, he angrily declared that the Mongolian courts protect the banks.

The amount of the loan, 6 million tugrugs, or about $2400, + 5 million tugrugs  in interest, would be a small claim in the United States. Nevertheless, this claim was taken very seriously by all parties, and for court proceedings were fairly formal, but were concluded in about 50 minutes.  The court considered the pleadings, formal evidence, statements of witnesses, possible cross examination and requests for additional information, and then rendered a decision. The judge, noting two Westerners in the empty courtroom, called us up to the bench after the proceedings to ask for our impressions. I told her truthfully that I was impressed by the efficiency of the proceeding. 

The courthouse was somewhat rundown, but the courtroom itself, although somewhat threadbare, seemed appropriate for the conduct of a judicial proceeding. I also noted that there was no bailiff or court security: although there was a court clerk and the judge’s secretary in the courtroom.

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