Justice Dialogue in the Bush: What works?

National Association of Community Legal Centres Inc Justice Dialogue in the Bush. What works? Helen McGowan, National Coordinator, Rural, Regional and Remote Projects, NACLC

Holistic Law What if lawyers were peacemakers, problem-solvers and healers of conflicts? J Kim Wright “Lawyers as peacemakers” www.cuttingedgelaw.com

Justice Planning Regional Justice Plans Cooperative Legal Service Delivery National Partnership Agreements: Legal Assistance Forums Regional Law Societies

Front End Loader Learning from experience; story autopsy, reflective practice, near misses. Pay attention.

What are we? Why do we exist? The default solution to a lack of legal services, particularly in regional areas, has been to establish community legal services rather than other forms of legal service provision, merely because community legal services are cheapest…..Without a commitment to a unique mode of service delivery that extends beyond what government or the private legal profession can offer, CLCs could become ‘casework on the cheap’. (Rich 2009)

National Partnership Agreement Objective national system of legal assistance that is integrated, efficient and cost effective, and focussed on providing services for disadvantaged Australians in accordance with access to justice principles of accessibility, appropriateness, equity, efficiency and effectiveness. Clause 15

The traditional features of CLCs that remain distinctive are their commitments to community participation, volunteer involvement and, particularly, a collective approach that includes a broad range of policy and law reform activities. These must be what drive CLC work into the foreseeable future, if CLCs are to remain relevant to, and unique in, their communities. (Rich 2009)

Plan to enhance justice outcomes a legal service trying to achieve power for its constituents now and into the future must, as a moral imperative, balance its commitment to the alleviation of present needs with a similar commitment to altering the political landscape of the community (Rich 2009)

What works? Shared vision Engaging all justice stakeholders (interagency) Measuring progress Creating positions along the spectrum Embracing the complexity Partnership, collaboration, cooperation, discourse Suck it and see: Make it up as we go (jazz)

Fence at top of Cliff or Ambulance at the bottom?

Focus on preventative or reactive justice? Reactive effort where resources are invested ‘after the event’ Primary investment in preventative work.

Feed it up National Partnership Agreement Legal Assistance Services Objectives and outputs Implementation of policy and program Robust evidence base Efficient and cost effective Jurisdictional Forums

Evidence based policy and practice Using Law Access data Measuring Outcomes A direct or indirect effect on the person or group of people concerned which is intended, positive and can be primarily attributed to the service. Curran 2012

National Rural Law and Justice Alliance To engage with communities and organisations to achieve practical improvements in the law and justice outcomes for rural Australians To initiate, encourage, inform and promote research on issues in rural law and justice

Where do RRR CLCs sit on the spectrum? Critic ------------Cooperate------------Capture Collaborate, co operate, dialogue. Abandon position of fundamental contest and pursue reform from within.

Troublemakers and ratbags; Define in or out? CLC: We have something to offer, but we have no wish to align with you. The state: You are making us uncomfortable but we cannot ignore you. Rice 2012 (referencing Mathieson’s theory of political action) Boundary rider maverick never being captured Maintain edginess NOT absorbed by the state. Remain ‘unfinished’ in competing contradiction.

Power, Love and Justice Power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. And justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. Martin Luther King Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public Cornel West