Rights exist behind the wire
In 2004 the ACT Legislative Assembly enacted the Human Rights Act, the first Bill of Rights to be passed into law in Australia. In essence the Act provides that no one may be treated or...
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Access and Administration
The Justice research theme provides an innovative multi-disciplinary approach to the way justice is performed, managed and experienced.
Members of the group meet monthly for seminars and informal discussion around justice topics. The Justice Group also organised a one day Symposium – Justice Connections on 3 June 2011. The aim of the Symposium was to generate discussion and debate about justice administration and access within society.
Access to justice projects involve legal, sociolegal academics and lawyers examining the specific issues encountered by women and the law, indigenous people and their legal rights and the legal system, sexual assault law reform and its limitations, women and criminal defences to homicide, the legal and social policy response to sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination in the workplace, judicial reasoning in family law, identity (forensics and biometrics, citizenship, discrimination, the Australia Card), human rights (privacy, mental health, law and sexuality), constitutional law (reform and comparative) and procedural and substantive justice.
Research in the field of justice administration examines the way the justice system is managed, focussing 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. Other research areas that are relevant to administration of justice include: the role of the ATO in delivering binding rulings; evidence law and the adversarial system of witness-examination, particularly in relation to the experience of vulnerable witnesses.
The theme Justice (Access and Administration) includes researchers from Law and other parts of the University whose research interests include an area relevant to Justice - defined broadly to include access to justice issues (access to legal support and to non-legal advocacy and support and the ability to participate effectively in the legal system) and administration of justice (management of the justice system – people, processes and environments)
Program Convenor
Professor Patricia Easteal AM, PhDCriminal law, family law, discrimination law and immigration lawview profile