Margaret J. Kravchuk, a magistrate judge on the U.S. District Court for Maine, wrote the following commentary.

Law Day, celebrated each May 1 since 1958, was conceived by Charles S. Rhyne, former president of the American Bar Association, and suggested to President Dwight Eisenhower as a Cold War measure to contrast the United States’ commitment to the rule of law with the Soviet Union’s annual May Day parade of weapons of war. But just as weapons of war can become weapons of defense, depending upon the eyes of the beholder, so, too the rule of law can serve as the linchpin of liberty or a tool of tyranny.

President John F. Kennedy said in his 1961 Law Day Proclamation, “Law is the strongest link between man and freedom.” His brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in a Law Day speech at the University of Georgia that same year, said, “We know that it is law which enables man to live together, that creates order out of chaos. We know the law is the glue that holds civilization together.”

As we move forward in the post-Sept. 11 world, tension between law as the link between us and freedom and law as the glue to keep our society from falling apart looms large. We want a legal system that protects both our liberty and our safety. Expecting our rules of law to perform both functions sometimes brings great philosophical conflict, especially in times of crisis. Today we struggle with military tribunals, expansion of governmental access to electronic information, stricter immigration laws, and new rules of search and seizure. We sense, as we always do in times of crisis, the tension between protecting liberty and protecting public safety.

History provides several examples of that enduring tension. In the 18th century, John Adams and the Federalists, under the threat of war with France, sought to reduce effective opposition to their policies by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. These laws allowed the president to deport aliens “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States” and authorized the government to arrest for treason those who published “any false, scandalous and malicious writing.” Under the rule of law, Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, was arrested and charged with libeling President Adams because he published newspaper articles opposing his policies.

Not so very long ago, we found ourselves in a terrible war, the victims of a surprise attack. On Feb. 19, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain military areas to hold people who posed potential threats to the country’s security. On March 21, 1942, Congress passed a law making it a misdemeanor offense to disregard any military order issued pursuant to FDR’s directive. Shortly thereafter, Kiyoshi Hirabayashi, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, was convicted of failing to report to a designated area when ordered to do so by a military authority. On June 21, 1943, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, writing for the

U.S. Supreme Court, upheld the conviction, stating:

“The adoption by Government, in crisis of war and of threatened invasion, of measures for the public safety, based upon the recognition of facts and circumstances which indicate that a group of one national extraction may menace that safety more than others, is not wholly beyond the limits of the Constitution and is not to be condemned merely because in other and in most circumstances racial distinctions are irrelevant.”

Hirabayashi faced the full force of the rule of law.

When Robert F. Kennedy spoke in 1961 at the University of Georgia, he appeared before a potentially hostile audience of students and faculty, many of whom believed that the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordering the desegregation of the nation’s public educational institutions with “all deliberate speed” was a terrible and unwarranted rule of law that had been foisted upon them. Yet, by 1961 the university had begun to successfully integrate its student population. “By facing the problem honorably,” Kennedy said, “you have shown to all the world that we Americans are moving forward together – solving our problem – under the rule of law.”

Kiyoshi Hirabayashi and Benjamin Franklin Bache remind us of times in our history when the rule of law, focused on maintaining the social fabric, lost sight of the law as “the strongest link between man and freedom,” as President Kennedy defined it more than 40 years ago. We must move forward now to solve today’s problems mindful of his 1961 Law Day Proclamation calling on people to “cherish their freedoms, understand the responsibilities they entail, and nurture the will to

preserve them.”

Following his tripartite admonition properly celebrates Law Day.

The following commentary was written by Leigh I. Saufley, chief justice of the Maine supreme court; Nancy Mills, chief justice of the Superior Court; and Vendean V. Vafiades, chief judge of the District Court.

On Law Day, May 1, 1990, the Maine Commission on Legal Needs, chaired by Sen. Edmund Muskie, released its action plan for the 1990s, which served as a call to action to all concerned with the growing gap between the need for legal services and the resources to meet that need. This year’s Law Day theme, “Assuring Equal Access to Justice for All,” reminds us of the commission’s mandate. On Law Day 2002, we pause to reflect on what we have accomplished and on what we have yet to do to assure equal access

to justice for all.

Pine Tree Legal Services is developing a video affidavit process for victims of domestic violence. These victims will be able to seek protection from the courts through video connections from safe houses as opposed to going to court where they may have to confront their abusers. Legal Services for the Elderly has obtained a national grant to allow the organization to continue to help elderly people with legal problems. The Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project has now funded support staff to help Maine’s growing immigrant community solve legal problems. The Web site www.helpmelaw.org has been developed to allow self-represented litigants obtain information on- line about various legal issues, court forms, and legal services. Computers with access to this Web site will be placed in all district courts in Maine. These computers are currently available in the West Bath, Belfast and Lewiston

District Courts. Volunteers are being recruited to assist litigants using these computers and accessing this Web site.

The courts and various service organizations continue the effort to find ways to make court proceedings user friendlier for self-represented litigants. But in many instances, there is no substitute for the advice and representation of an attorney. The attorneys in Maine distinguish themselves every day by representing litigants in civil cases for no charge and by representing indigent defendants in criminal cases for a significantly reduced hourly fee that is paid by the state; this fee does not even cover the attorney’s overhead expenses.

Parties facing civil litigation can obtain the services of a Maine attorney at no cost to the parties through the services of several organizations, including the Volunteer Lawyer’s Project, Legal Services for the Elderly, the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, and Pine Tree Legal Services. For example, the Volunteer Lawyer’s Project referred 830 new cases to Maine attorneys during 2001; many attorneys continued to work on cases they had accepted in previous years. Maine attorneys’ level of participation in pro bono work has historically been among the highest in the nation. Sole practitioners and attorneys in small law firms in rural areas of Maine play a particularly important role in this representation.

As an example of the attorneys’ participation in criminal cases,

17 defendants facing murder and manslaughter charges that were resolved during 2001 were represented on a court-appointed basis by Maine attorneys. These attorneys devoted well over 3,200 hours to these cases. These are hours that could have been devoted to more lucrative and certainly less stressful matters. Instead, the attorneys accepted these murder and manslaughter cases at the request of the courts, often to the exclusion of other work and at the risk of incurring unfavorable publicity and community sentiment.

The people of Maine are fortunate to live in a state where equal access to justice for all is not simply a theme for Law Day but more and more frequently, a reality. Certainly we have more to do. New challenges arise every day. But on this Law Day, we should recognize and appreciate the efforts of the courts, the service organizations, and, most especially, Maine’s attorneys to assure equal access to justice for all.