Articles by: John B. Lawrence SC

The broken NT legal system, 'disremembering', and the Indigenous struggle For over twenty years Indigenous people in the Northern Territory have been subjected to increasing oppression, punitive measures and abuse by government social policies and criminal-law reforms. Their vulnerability to this has been compounded by a legal system that over this period has deteriorated in quality and standards. Their own legal representation, the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA), has been a collaborator with governments…

The recent spate of incidents at Northern Territory (NT) youth justice detention centres shows that two years after the White/Gooda Royal Commission was established little has changed. This is evident in the continuing high number of Aboriginal youth in detention - still six to seven times higher than in any other state. One hundred per cent of youth detainees are Aboriginal, with 80 per cent of them held on remand. And then there are the…

On Friday 17 November 2017 the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory (RCPDCNT) produced its findings and recommendations. I believe it accurately records that we are a lesser country than we once were, and indeed that this diminishment exposes a country in general moral collapse.