In a column spotlighting timely pro bono matters, Law360 profiled Milbank’s work with the civil rights organization Muslim Advocates on behalf of All Muslim Association of America Inc. (AMAA). AMAA, a nonprofit that provides low-cost burial services for Muslims in its Stafford County cemetery, was seeking to build a second cemetery to serve its clients when the Stafford County’s Board of Supervisors rewrote the county’s ordinances in a way that blocked AMAA’s development of its cemetery.
Milbank is representing AMAA in a lawsuit that accuses Stafford County of violating the organization’s religious rights and its right to due process by imposing unfair land use restrictions. "We thought it was very, very problematic the way Stafford County treated AMAA, our client," Litigation partner Tawfiq Rangwala said. “Essentially this county changed the law in the dark of night to prevent our client from building a cemetery on land that was zoned for that precise use."
The firm secured a major victory in October when the Stafford County Board of Supervisors decided to repeal the ordinances obstructing the cemetery’s construction, but there are indications that Stafford County will further impede the cemetery’s development. While the county has historically required property owners to obtain consent for a cemetery’s construction from neighbors who own homes within a certain distance from the gravesite, the county is expanding that requirement to include any property within a certain amount of feet of the cemetery.
"As much as we're happy with the repeal and we see that it's forward progress for our clients ... we're not naive enough to walk away from this case until our clients are building their cemetery," Milbank special counsel Melanie Westover Yanez said.
Read the full article, “Milbank Attys Assist Muslim Nonprofit In Cemetery Fight,” here.
