Page 1994 - Week 07 - Thursday, 17 June 1993
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At the heart of the culture of the legal system, of course, is the common law, the law developed by judges both here and elsewhere, though notably in England, over many centuries. Its interpretation and its evolution sustain the legal profession and the whole edifice of the legal system in this country. That is not to say, Madam Speaker, that the common law is obsolete or indefensible. It is complex because the human condition itself is, I would suggest, complex. The common law is replete with qualifications and variations on the main theme because society itself is so full of complex variations and qualifications. Therefore, our law is a reflection of the complex nature of our society. We have made many attempts in recent years to remove that complexity and to make the operation of citizens in our society easier and more understandable. We live in a world where citizens are expected to play a large role in our community, in our society, as our democracy develops. Hand in hand with that, I believe that we should also make the legal system, which is so closely tied in with the functioning of our democracy, accessible to those citizens.
Madam Speaker, the committee found that in many respects the overriding problem in obtaining access to our legal system is the lack of readily accessible information on that system. The system, as I indicated, is complex and arcane, in large part because of the language that it uses and also because it is difficult to locate at any one time an exact and precise statement as to what the law of the Territory - or the law of the nation, for that matter - might happen to say. That is the result of the many jurisdictions that have administration or carriage of laws - in our case, both the Territory and the Commonwealth - and the combination of common law and statute law. Because amendments to laws have resulted in a need for constant updating and change, a full statement as to what the law might say at any given time is very difficult to locate and to hold with any precision.
The committee did recommend, however, that an important part of the process of making that law accessible is to run a public campaign which disseminates information on the component parts of the legal system in the ACT and the means of access to them. The committee recommends that the Attorney-General's Department coordinate that public campaign, but that other organisations - particularly the Law Society of the ACT, which is responsible for solicitors in the ACT - be invited to take part in that program. That is not just a case of putting out brochures indicating where you can find particular services, but rather a process of explaining how the legal system in our Territory works and making access to that system a much simpler process than it might be to many citizens. To many citizens the process of getting information is extremely daunting and necessitates the use of lawyers in order to be able to get to first base. It would be helpful if citizens understood the alternatives to that process. That can be achieved only by a process of education which is comprehensive and which is continuing, not merely followed over a small period of time.
Madam Speaker, there were two other principal areas that the committee considered to be important in this inquiry but which it acknowledged, it was able only to scratch the surface of. Those areas were the legal profession itself and the court system. It was, accordingly, the decision of the committee that, rather than attempt to deal with those areas in too little detail or in too perfunctory a fashion, it should return to them as separate inquiries. The committee proposes, whether by reference of the Assembly or of its own volition, to conduct inquiries into those two areas - that is, the conduct of the legal profession and the organisation of the court system in the ACT.
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