Ms Andrea Durbach, Director, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
17 June 2002
PARRAMATTA (handed up)
For many years, the cry of access to justice has both informed and impeded the work of governments, legal aid commissions, law societies, bar associations and community legal centres. Many services and programs have been established with the primary purpose of enhancing access to justice. However, as the resolution of legal needs becomes more layered and complex, with increasing critical economic and social impacts, effective access to justice continues to elude those most socially and economically disadvantaged.
Often, the reason for this failure to meet legal need, is that services are designed to secure access to justice as opposed to justice itself. And what inevitably results, is the client who moves from one service to the other, consistently being offered – with very good intention – access routes to justice without necessarily achieving a viable outcome at the end of their journey.
In his paper to the Australian Law Reform Commission conference Managing Justice in May 2000, his Hon Chief Justice Murray Gleeson AC, noted
If we are serious about giving people more access to justice, then we need a reasonably clear understanding of the kind of justice to which such access would be worth having.
LawAccess New South Wales is an important initiative which developed in recognition of the crucial need to provide a single point of access to those requiring legal assistance in New South Wales. It brings together key players in legal service delivery with the specific aim of ensuring that those who approach LawAccess will be referred by properly trained and informed staff to quality and appropriate service providers committed to ensuring “the kind of justice to which such access would be worth having.”
From my initial meetings with LawAccess staff, it is evident that a great degree of care and consideration has been applied in the planning and implementation of the service to accommodate the primary needs of clients, the key objective of the sponsors of the service, the potential pressures on staff, and most importantly, the capacity of the service providers who will work with LawAccess to build a credible and essential service.
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