Who We Are

The G8 Legal Support Group is a small collective which has come together to provide legal support for activists around the G8 Summit in Scotland in July 2005.

We are all volunteers. If you’d like to help out then please get in touch.

Principles

We operate under the following principles:

• We give unconditional support to anyone arrested as a result of participation in protests or actions against the G8. We are not the judge and jury of the validity or otherwise of the tactics of protesters.

• The role of legal observers is to observe, gather evidence and witnesses.

• Legal observers will not mediate between protesters and the police or negotiate with the police.

• Legal observers are volunteers with no special legal status.

• Legal observers are not necessarily trained lawyers and the advice given by legal observers is confined to the advice given by the group as a whole.

What We Do

In particular, we aim to:

• Provide information as to the law in Scotland, and likely police tactics, in advance of the action

• Provide legal observers on the day

• Help co-ordinate witnesses and evidence that may be helpful to peoples defences.

• Help report and/or advertise court appearances to other activists so as to maximise court support.

What We Don’t Do

We won’t:

• Judge you. That’s not our job. The police, courts and media will be doing enough of this to go around.

• Organise the actual actions.

• Negotiate with the police on anyone’s behalf.

• Guarantee to be everywhere, all the time, an hour ago. We do our best but we’re only human.