Justice - Access and Administration

The Justice research theme provides an innovative multi-disciplinary approach to the way justice is performed, managed and experienced.

Research in the field of justice administration examines the way the justice system is managed, focusing on the interactions between people, processes and environments.  It brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds including law, management, communications, forensics, criminology, psychology, architecture, and socio-legal studies, to examine topics such as safety and security in courts, the use of interactive visual evidence, the effect of video-mediation communications in the justice process, judicial workloads, the use of technology in terrorism trials and courts and the public. Another research area that is relevant to administration of justice includes the role of the ATO in delivering binding rulings.

In access to justice projects, legal, sociolegal academics and lawyers come together to examine specific and relevant issues. One of our focuses is women. This includes research looking at women’s encounters with the law, sexual assault law reform and its limitations, women and criminal defences to homicide, the legal and social policy response to sexual harassment, and women’s responses to the justice system from an historical perspective.

We study access to justice issues too through research that investigates a wide range of topics including:

• bullying and discrimination in the workplace
• indigenous people and their legal rights and the legal system
• identity (forensics and biometrics, citizenship, discrimination, the Australia Card)
• history/philosophy of idea of human rights [in the context of history of legal ideas]
• public legal services  
• the legal profession
• high tech crime and policing

And we look at various types of law such as:

• constitutional law including reform and procedural and substantive justice
• judicial reasoning in family law
• evidence law and the adversarial system of witness-examination particularly in relation to the experience of vulnerable witnesses,
• human rights (privacy, biotechnology law and ethics, mental health and the law, law and sexuality)

Another shared focus of some members is comparative law and justice: Japanese juvenile crime; domestic criminal law relating to the arrest of a New Zealand anti-whaling activist and Japanese Greenpeace activists, international policing; comparative constitutional law; comparative criminal procedural law and the comparative legal analysis [of the notion] of civil rights human rights and comparative law and the delineation between private/public law and civil/public rights.

Current Relevant ARC Grants

Theme leaders include Vice Chancellor Prof Stephen Parker awarded $245,000 for the project Juror confidence in justice: democratic participation or deference to authority?  Australia will be better protected from terrorism and crime if its justice system has the confidence of its citizens. Currently it does not. Without such confidence, justice offers neither a credible deterrent nor a protector of rights. Courts are typically designed and run using a hierarchical model of authority, while new therapeutic and restorative approaches make justice processes more democratic.  There is little evidence of how either of these impacts on justice for participants. Understanding the process by which people develop trust during one critical adjudicative process, the jury trial, will allow juries, and other forms of lay decision‑making in judicial processes, to be used more effectively in the justice system.

Gateways to Justice: Models for Virtual Participation in Court Processes

Looks at the quality of communication in video-mediated testimony- what sense of 'presence' do remote witnesses have, and how do potential jurors respond? It examines the social engagement of the participants, the 'richness' of interaction made possible by the technology, and the level of environmental comfort provided. Chief Investigators include Professor Deborah Blackman, Professor Greg Battye, Professor, Chris Lennard, Assistant Professor Alice Richardson.  The focus is very much on the human context of technological change. Bringing together architects, psychologists, forensic scientists, lawyers and others, and working with the justice departments of Victoria and Western Australia , the project will develop guidelines for governing remote witness facilities for courts.

Fortress or sanctuary? Enhancing court safety by managing people, places and processes

This project aims to identify actual and perceived safety needs of court user communities and the features of court processes, practices and designs that contribute to safer court environments. It measure the impact of changes to court processes, practices and designs on the safety of court environments and will develop best practice guidelines for improving the safety environments of courts  Chief Investigators include Professor Deborah Blackman, Associate Professor Deborah Rickwood and Assistant Professor Anne Wallace.