Rebecca Plummer, a criminal defence lawyer from Northern Territory, travelled to India, The Netherlands, USA and Canada to evaluate practical models in order to improve access to justice in isolated and disadvantaged communities.
In 2020, Rebecca was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to increase public confidence in justice and safety by observing practical models in other jurisdictions. She undertook her travels between November 2022 and February 2023.
“We need to broaden and deepen societies understanding of and involvement in the justice system, and this means meeting people where they are, using innovative and unique forms of communication, and having courts and government institutions that reflect the communities they serve,” Ms Plummer said.
Dr Rachael Coghlan, CEO of the Winston Churchill Trust congratulated Rebecca on her Fellowship. “Now more than ever we need to address ways to improve the justice system in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and other disadvantaged communities,” said Rachael Coghlan. “Rebecca has learnt how the influence of different economic landscapes has on the functioning of the legal system and she can bring these learnings back to Australia to implement at a local, state and national level.”
Some of Rebecca’s recommendations are to; increase focus on Community Legal Education, engage lawyers not just for their advice, but for the legal information they can provide, prioritise human-centred design and engage in true evaluations of current systems and collect complete and accurate data and communicate about this data to decision makers and the wider public in a way that is helpful and accessible. This can be read in her Churchill Fellowship project report.
“Community legal education needs to be a pillar of the profession and when more people are able to ‘read and write’ the legal language it makes it more contemporary,” added Ms Plummer. “The flow on effect of this is huge as it means more people become engaged with the scrutiny of the law, which allows for more involvement in the creation of laws, limits court resources to those matters and truly need judicial consideration, and all in all gives the law a chance to reflect the society it serves”.