Legal Aid NT, North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency should be adequately funded, society says
The Law Society Northern Territory has urged the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments to immediately tackle the funding and other issues currently affecting the rights to legal representation and a fair trial.
More specifically, the law society called on these governments to work alongside Legal Aid NT to ensure that it has all the funding, resources, and support that it needs to perform its critical role in the criminal justice system.
The law society emphasised in its media release that organisations such as Legal Aid NT and the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) should always be sufficiently resourced and funded so that they can perform their important functions of ensuring that vulnerable Australians can access legal representation.
Immediate action urged
The law society stressed that the governments should respond immediately and decisively to the current situation. The law society expressed concerns about the impacts of the situation on persons charged with offences in the Northern Territory and about the wellbeing of legal practitioners involved in the criminal justice system.
“It is just not good enough that successive governments have allowed the situation at Legal Aid NT to become so bad that it has to even consider the reduction of its critical services as recently announced,” said Richard Henschke, the law society’s president, in the media release.
“The impact of these cuts will be felt across the whole of the criminal justice system in the Northern Territory for years to come,” Henschke added in the law society’s media release.
The law society noted that, under the rule of law, all Australians should be able to access competent and independent legal representation to defend their rights. This is especially true for vulnerable members of the community, the law society said.
