Lady Justice

This is obviously a formidable and daunting task, yet Shami Chakrabarti has displayed a determined spirit to stand up for Liberty’s founding principles since taking on the role of director in 2003.

She is featured in a new open-air photographic exhibition being staged this month in the run-up to the reopening of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum — a collection of more than 40 portraits taken by photographer, Theo Chalmers.

So, given her support for Oxford’s great museum, what antique work of art or antiquarian book would she like to see washed up on our desert island?

Shami describes herself as ‘more into books and words than objects’, so it is no surprise that her first choice is a book.

“I was recently a guest on Desert Island Discs and the book I chose to take to the island was To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee. I first read it when I was about 12 years-old and it had a profound effect on me. Since then I have met so many campaigners for fair trials and human rights who have also been inspired by it. Because I chose this book and Nina Simone’s song I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, a columnist in a national paper described me as ‘The most dull woman in Britain’.

“Fortunately not everyone reacted in that way. I received a touching letter from a listener who offered to share her To Kill a Mocking Bird story. While working with children in Alabama, she helped with a stage adaptation of the book. “She wrote: ‘During a rehearsal, an old lady came in and asked ‘What is going on here? What are you doing?’ The teacher in charge replied ‘Well ma’am we have been reading the book in class and thought it would be good to stage it too. Why are you interested?’ Her reply was ‘My name is Harper Lee and I wrote that story.’ Stunned, we told her ‘How wonderful. We so admire your writing but do you mind us asking why you didn’t go on to write other books?’ Harper Lee’s explanation was ‘Because I had said everything I really wanted to say in my entire life in that one book!’ “This lovely correspondent endeared herself even more to me because she enclosed a cheque to Liberty!” Shami added.

“Stories have so much more power than articles or speeches. I love the scene in the film of Harper Lee’s book, where Gregory Peck, playing Atticus Finch, tells his daughter: ‘You have to know what it is like to walk around in someone else’s shoes.’ “The idea, of treating other people as you would like to be treated yourself, is universal; it is in most religions and underpins human ethics. I think that book led me to choose to study law.

“The first image that really impressed itself on my psyche, I saw in France about 20 years ago. While I was a law student, I worked for a while as a short order cook in a café in Central London.

“One of the waitresses was a French student and she was not enjoying the hard work. When she suggested I leave with her and stay at her mother’s house in the South of France, I jumped at the chance.

“I spent a delightful summer there including July 14, Bastille Day. Every village had its open celebrations and it was then that I saw Delacroix’s La Liberté Guidant le Peuple. A woman personifying Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the tricoleur. The actual painting is in the Louvre, but I bought a poster back with me and it hangs on the wall in my windowless ‘dungeon’ office.

“While working in the ‘black tower’ that is the Home Office, I bought another poster to remind me why I wanted to become a lawyer. When at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I saw Brown v. the Board of Education. It concerns the case that helped bring equal rights to education in the States. Alongside that and my Delacroix poster I now have lots of drawings by my son who is a keen artist.

“They all remind me of the instant impact images can have. That is why on the few occasions we commission advertisements we are careful with the design. Recently we had one made for Liberty to celebrate our 75th anniversary.

“We used another to oppose the extension of the period of detention without trial to 42 days. I think it really helped to win the case because the simple bar chart compares the time a suspect can be held in custody without charge in all advanced counties. The number ‘42’ next to ‘3’ or ‘4’ stood out starkly.”

There is one object at Oxford Brookes University that now has significance for her. Brookes is named after John Henry Brookes, the education campaigner and there is a bust of him in the University Campus.

“As a 19 year-old undergraduate, I heard Helena Kennedy give an inspiring talk about following your heart into the law. I decided she was my kind of lawyer and she was also the first chancellor of Brookes. When I received a call from John Snow asking if I would like to become chancellor I checked my diary to make sure it wasn’t All Fools Day! Surprisingly, it wasn’t a practical joke.

“The image of a university chancellor is of a grey-suited man, possibly overseeing the credit crunch. Considering a Sun columnist once described me as: ‘The most dangerous woman in Britain‘, it was brave of the university to consider me.

“I think I prefer to regard myself as Brookes’ mascot! I am really happy to be here. Brookes is not only a fine academic institution, it also has its roots in the local community. It is not an ivory tower for its courses are so varied, they can take you onto the factory floor, the hospital ward and the classroom. I really enjoy my visits here because, once among the students, I almost feel like a teenager once again.”

When Shami came to chose her lone item for the desert island she went for Delacroix’s La Liberté Guidant le Peuple. Liberty the organisation has loomed so large in my life that looking at her on the desert island would evoke so many memories.”