TO LET KAY RESIGN, OR NOT TO LET KAY RESIGN THAT IS THE QUESTION
www.slobodan-milosevic.org – November 9, 2004

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

The proceedings against Slobodan Milosevic resumed at the Hague Tribunal on Tuesday with a debate on the status of court-imposed lawyers Steven Kay and Gillian Higgins, who asked to resign from the case last month.

The first part of the proceedings was spent debating whether it was the trial chamber or the registrar who had the jurisdiction to decide if Kay’s resignation could be granted or not.

Milosevic said, “Mr. Robinson, as I understand it, thanks to your decision Mr. Kay is in this current situation. Therefore, it is logical to assume that you have jurisdiction over a situation which you yourself created."

Robinson answered saying, "That is a very pragmatic approach," and eventually the trial chamber decided that it had the jurisdiction to decide on Kay’s resignation.

Last week the appeals chamber ruled that Milosevic would be allowed to take the lead in conducting his own defense, however the ruling ordered that imposed counsel could take over if the trial chamber decided that Milosevic’s health prevented him from continuing.

Kay said the relationship with Milosevic has made it impossible for him to continue. "The relationship between the accused and us has been completely destroyed,'' Kay said.

"I do not want to play yo-yo on this issue in this building.''

Kay said forcing him to proceed against Milosevic's will would be a violation of the code of conduct and "fundamentally flaw'' the proceedings.

"... As assigned counsel our relationship with this accused has run into the sand and completely deteriorated to the extent that we do not have what existed before," Kay said.

Kay cited as a matter of particular concern, the fact that Slobodan Milosevic’s attorney, Nico Steijnen, has begun litigation against him through the Disciplinary Board of the Dutch Bar association.

Steijnen, who is a member of the board of the Slobodan Milosevic Freedom Center, brought the litigation soon after the Tribunal imposed Kay as Milosevic’s lawyer.

Kay said that the matter with the Dutch Bar was “a matter of great concern” to him. Judge Bonamy was particularly outraged and called the litigation “baseless” and “malicious,” even though he hasn’t read the complaint, and in spite of the fact that the Dutch Bar wouldn’t have agreed to hear a “baseless” or “malicious” case in the first place.

In addition to the threat of being disbarred, Kay cited the non-cooperation of potential defense witnesses, and the public attacks against his professionalism as being further reasons for his resignation.

Kay left open the possibility of remaining connected to the case as an amicus curiae, which is the position he held from the beginning of the trial, until he was imposed as Milosevic’s “lawyer” in September.

Kay noted that the appeals ruling did not mandate that Milosevic must be assigned a lawyer, it merely upheld the trial chamber’s decision to impose a lawyer, while overturning the modalities so that Milosevic could question the witnesses first.

The tribunal has not finished debating the question of whether or not to grant Kay’s resignation, and the argumentation will continue on Wednesday.

The next witness on the docket is rumored to be Mihajlo Markovic, a founding member and former vice chairman of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS).

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