[Ed. Note: On April 24, 2002, Pam Baker, a well-known and respected human rights lawyer in Hong Kong, passed away in Britain at the age of 71. Two days after her death a radio talk show program on RTHK Radio 3 in Hong Kong asked a panel of her local friends and people who knew her to share their thoughts about her life and the contributions she had made to the community over the course of living about 20 years of her life in Hong Kong. This is an edited transcript that begins in the middle of the radio program hosted by Peter Gordon and Sarah Passmore.]

SARAH PASSMORE: Tom Mulvey, who worked with her, wrote an e-mail. One thing he wrote was: "Pam came to Hong Kong, middle-aged, not with any human rights agenda, just as a way to start a new life after her divorce. She found a calling and a need for her humanity and legal skills and her strong belief in the power and righteousness of the law and justice. The Vietnamese refugees benefited, the mainland children of Hong Kong people benefited, her friends benefited, the legal profession benefited and mostly Hong Kong has benefited from the knowledge that humanity and human rights are essential and worth fighting for and that it can be done in a generally materialistic society."

Who is going to take on her mantle now?

Maybe Peter Barnes can answer that.

PETER BARNES: I think that the first question that you posed earlier was not a rhetorical one, that is, is her legacy going to die with her? I think it is certainly not because I think she has had too much of an impact for that to happen on people that she inspired to come to Hong Kong, including me, and we are still here and so are the fundamental changes in government policy. It wasn't like, "Yes, we hear what she is saying and are, in fact, going to start to allow all of the Vietnamese to stay." We've seen forced removals, we've seen the harsher side of the government, but it was made that much more difficult by what Pam did.

I also think she has changed the legal profession. I think there are many more lawyers now who are willing to do work for nothing. At the time when I was privileged to be with her, when she was starting the firm in 1993, most law firms were started with the idea of making money. I think her law firm was the first with the idea of making no money at all. She was a little scared at the start, of sinking her life savings into the firm, but it all worked out, and I think that was because we knew it was going to work out - something would turn up.

. . .

SARAH PASSMORE: What would she have made of today's news of the right-of-abode protesters being forced out of Chater Garden?

PETER BARNES: I think she was expecting it, but I think she would also do what she could to help those people. Unfortunately, we are at a point where we have a binding judgement from the Court of Final Appeal, which says that these people must leave. The government does not have to take into account whatever humanitarian circumstances may apply to each individual case. There really isn't that much you can do at this late stage. Pam did what she could and, in fact, achieved significant victories and a lasting change in the judgement if you read the judgement carefully. Although most people lost the case and their chance for right of abode in Hong Kong, there was a positive judgement for the rule of law in that it recognises that government statements can give rise to real enforceable expectations. It was just that the judges felt that the sheer numbers involved in the case [more than 5,000 people] did not mean that the director [of immigration] had to change his mind that he could remove them because of the numbers, but, in fact, they found for us on most of the legal points.

PETER GORDON: Basil Fernando from the Asian Human Rights Commission, would you agree that Pam Baker has raised the level of awareness of human rights and that it will be maintained now?

BASIL FERNANDO: Oh, Yes. When I got to know her in the early '90s when the cause of the Vietnamese refugees was one of the most unpopular causes in Hong Kong, she was one of those people for whom that did not matter at all. She knew the cause was right, and, above all, I think she had a feeling for the people who are the poorest, who are at the very bottom of things. In the Vietnamese camps, I worked for the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] programme at the time, and I visited these camps for about three years almost every day. It was one of the most depressing places that you had then in Hong Kong. Access to people was very little - the media was not allowed - and, after some time, Pam was not allowed to go.

PETER GORDON: She was banned from the camps for giving the detainees false hope - that was the government's argument.

BASIL FERNANDO: This is a good thing to think about. What is called false hope very often is a belief in the legal system. If you ultimately believe that the legal system dies, then hope dies. We are living in times, not only in Hong Kong, but all over the world, in which we're trying to deal with difficult situations within the framework of the law. She carried that belief - one of the few people at that time that I met here in Hong Kong who had absolutely no doubt about this. Every day in the newspaper there were large headlines against the Vietnamese, and even forcibly carrying the Vietnamese into airplanes was in the headlines. But that did not deter her to believe that these people deserve support. I think I will remember her as a very compassionate person.

SARAH PASSMORE: I think you are not the only one there. You brought up a very interesting point - this point of hope. She said that it was ridiculous to say that you couldn't give someone hope because hope is the last thing you lose. Is there still hope or faith in the legal system in Hong Kong when it comes to human rights since the reinterpretation of the law [by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing in 1999]?

PETER BARNES: Absolutely. I think that if you lose that then we may as well pack up and go live in another country. I have tremendous faith in the judiciary. It has taken a battering over the last few years. The judges may disagree on this point, but I think that the reality is that - unfortunately - what the government did in 1999 has had dramatic and far-reaching effects. But when it comes to more challenges, I think that - absolutely - we have to believe that the legal system is there, and it is the fact that it doesn't matter whether there is money. If you believe that there is a legitimate cause, then you take it to court, and that improves the legal system.

. . .

PETER GORDON: We've got a lot of callers lined up so let's get going. We have Carole Petersen from Hong Kong University. . . . Carole, looking at the pictures on the front pages today and our news reports here on Radio 3 - "Police Swoop on Abode Protesters" is the headline on the front page of the South China Morning Post - protesters are being lugged out of Chater Garden - looks quite brutal although it is difficult to tell how brutal it was. This work has to continue. Do you think we are ever going to be in a situation where human rights are accepted by everybody, including government officials?

CAROLE PETERSEN: That is a very difficult question. It's a very sad time today for human rights in Hong Kong. I do think that I would endorse what the other speakers have said that the hope in the judiciary and the government has been shaken a little bit in the last few years, but I think, in general, people feel that the rule of law is still very strong in Hong Kong. I think it's very important that people don't forget that unpopular causes deserve legal representation, and I think that's what Pam really stood up for. There is a tendency sometimes to desert causes when people feel they have gone too far or they've become too frustrated or too desperate, but everyone deserves full legal representation and full protection under the law. Pam really believed in that, both with the Vietnamese and the right-of-abode claimants. She also did wonderful work in the women's movement, which is where I first met her. I think people will stand by her reputation and try very hard to live up to her.

. . .

SARAH PASSMORE: We have a caller, Steve Vines. What are your memories of Pam?

STEVE VINES: . . . [T]he reason I really admire her is because this is a place that has an awful reputation for cynicism and for people who think that everyone lives for the bottom line, which means for the bottom dollar, and her bottom line was always: Is it right? Is it not right? To have someone with a moral compass like that and an absolutely unswerving determination to do something about it - what a magnificent thing that someone like that would come and live in Hong Kong.

SARAH PASSMORE: Where do you think she got this very strong belief in right or wrong? Did she have a faith, or was it something she just always had?

STEVE VINES: I know that she was nominally a Catholic, but I don't think it was a religious faith that drove her. She was not particularly involved in organised religion. I think it was something that came from within her, from her experience of life, and it is for a lot of exceptional people that these convictions grow from their own personal experiences.

PETER GORDON: Do you think that looking at her legacy is a wait-and-see situation? Peter Barnes has mentioned that he does pro bona work; colleagues of his take on human rights cases as well; we have Basil Fernando here from the Asian Human Rights Commission. The work does go on, but do you think we need a focal point like Pam Baker and that we've got to find another one?

STEVE VINES: I think you must never discount the force of personality. There are very good people in Hong Kong who will do very good things, but you need someone who can act as a crystallising force. I'm sure there will be other people who can do that, but she has been such a central figure, particularly in the legal community, and as a force for good. She will be hard to replace, and she has encouraged a lot of people into this world. Although it is terrible to lose her, I really don't think this will be the end of the story.

PETER GORDON: Part of the focal point was that she was silver-haired, she was a woman and, with great respect to you Peter Barnes - you are another man in a suit, aren't you?

PETER BARNES: If there is one thing that we can't replace about Pam is the wonderful sense she had when responding to media questions or giving comments. There would be this government press release, for example, on some topic relevant to the refugees or the right-of-abode issue. She would be asked for a comment, and she wasn't one to mince her words so the most likely response would be something like: "Absolute balderdash!" That's hard to replace.

. . .

PETER GORDON: Basil Fernando, when did you last see Pam?

BASIL FERNANDO: I had direct contact most of the time with her during the Vietnamese period [in the early 1990s]. Later she was aware of what we were doing in the human rights field, and we were aware of what she was doing.

I think though there is something very relevant to talk about at this moment of her life, which is that the people who may have lost their cause in the law still have the right to protest. This is a very important principle of law because the law does not always represent morality, and it is morality that expands the law so a peaceful protest against even what seems to be legally settled is a right of the people. . . . She believed that in the cause of the Vietnamese there was a certain morality. Policy does not always represent morality, and sometimes law only represents policy so people can have disadvantages on that basis. They have to accept that the law is the law; but at the same time, they have a right to protest that the law should change, at least for the benefit of the people in the future. Her life reflects that aspect of a lawyer. Lawyers are not only people who defend causes in court, but a human rights lawyer is someone who helps to expand the law.

SARAH PASSMORE: Liz Whitelam of Amnesty International, I'm sure you would agree that people should always have the right to protest.

LIZ WHITELAM: Absolutely, and I think the last conversation I had with her was on the public assembly laws. I think the regulations are that you need a permit if you have 30 people if it's a standing demonstration and 50 if you were actually having a march, and Pam said, "If you need the 51st person, give me a call."

PETER GORDON: We're running out of time. I'd like to thank everyone for coming in. We had Peter Barnes, a former colleague of Pam Baker; John Ball, a personal friend; Liz Whitelam, secretary for Amnesty International; and Basil Fernando, executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission. Also on the phone we had Dr. Judith Mackay, who founded Harmony House with Pam Baker; Carole Petersen, associate professor of the Faculty of Law at Hong Kong University; Steve Vines; and Tom Mulvey by e-mail.