Informit article: Indigenous lives matter

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 rather than a defender of their rights. All of this has had its inevitable effect: scandalously high and increasing rates of imprisonment, as well as a marked shift in Indigenous attitudes towards the legal system itself.