Lyons, Greg --- "Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service Initiative: Regional Court Visiting Committees" [1981] AboriginalLawB 4; (1981) 1(1) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 4

• Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service Initiative: Regional Court Visiting Committees

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Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service Initiative: Regional Court Visiting Committees

Greg Lyons

Early in 1980, a number of Aboriginal women living in Shepparton formed a volunteer court-visiting committee. Their aim was to bolster the services provided in the Shepparton area by the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS). While the VALS was providing legal representation for local Aboriginal people coming before the Shepparton court, there was a concern that additional support was needed. The women providing the volunteer court-visiting service had four specific aims:

(1) to provide emotional support for Aborigines facing court;
(2) to ensure that Aborigines coming before the court understood the court's procedures and any sentences that were imposed;
(3) to provide follow-up support for those coming before the court and where necessary, to make referrals to specific welfare or health agencies; and
(4) to ensure that the VALS had as much
advance notice as possible of cases involving Aborigines that were coming before the local court.

As conceived, the volunteer court-visiting service would have provided valuable support for a Legal Service whose resources are often stretched to the limit and beyond. The scheme foundered, principally because of the varied demands made on the women participating in the scheme. As in many communities, those active in Aboriginal affairs were working on numerous committees and spreading their energies over a number of projects. The volunteer court-visiting scheme was a casualty of such a situation. The concept however, lives on.

The VALS is now seeking funds to appoint a full time co-ordinator whose task would be to help establish volunteer court-visiting committees in a number of Victorian country towns. The initiative deserves support. As well as facilitating their establishment, a co-ordinator would monitor the workings of court-visiting schemes in regional centres such as Swan Hill, Bairnsdale, Morwell, Shepparton and Portland. Volunteers visiting courts on a regular basis and providing support for Aboriginal defendants would greatly strengthen the work of the VALS. That Service's work would become firmly based in the communities in which it works.

Aboriginal people appearing before country courts would receive both practical and moral support from those participating in the court-visiting service. One Shepparton woman who participated in the original scheme commented: `We were trying to get people so they weren't so frightened in court - so they won't say "no" when they meant "yes.'

The VALS proposal to establish volun teer court-visiting committees in a number of country areas indicates a view that while legal representation in court is valuable, it is most effective when local Aboriginal communities lend their continuing support to those individuals caught up in the criminal justice process The appointment of a full-time co-ordina for would mean the effective channelling of the energies of those Aboriginal people willing and able to assist those appearing in court.

Assuming funds become available tc allow the appointment of an Aborigina person to the position of full-time co ordinator, and assuming a number of country Aboriginal communities establish court-visiting committees, court practices may perceptibly change. It can be argued with some force that because of the work of organisations such as the VALS, courts dealing with Aboriginal defendants are now more sensitive to issues affecting those defendants than they were ten years ago. Local courts may become even more attuned to the circumstances of local Aboriginal communities if representatives of those communities are regularly visiting courts to support Aboriginal defendants and to speak on their behalf. To an extent, Aboriginal court-visiting committees in country centres may help transform local courts from fairly intimidating institutions that embody the values and assumptions of the majority society to institutions that are at least aware of the values and assumptions of particular Aboriginal communities.