The database, Australian Courts Considering Aboriginality Case Summaries, makes available online the details of every case in which the Aboriginal backgrounds of defendants, their cultural practices or the customary laws of their communities, have been considered by the court, and the effect this has had on outcomes.
Michael West of the Metropolitan Land Council gave the welcome to country and he pointed out how recent it is that Aboriginal people actually had a legal presence in Australia.
John McKenzie, Chief Legal Officer of the ALS, spoke about the significance of the database in the Australian justice system. He outlined its development and showed how it could be used to access cases, by year or by alphabetical listing – an enormous help to the busy lawyer.
The project is not NSW specific but covers cases from every jurisdiction. But there is still an enormous amount of work to do – this is just the first volume. The booklet states that it is hoped the database can eventually be expanded to cover cases on children’s care and on protection law and coronial law – jurisdictions increasingly of relevance to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services.
Gordon Syron’s painting, Judgement by his Peers (1978), painted by the artist while serving a life sentence in Long Bay, fronts the booklet. It depicts a trial where only the defendant is white and everyone else is black.
Mr Kim Duggan of the Attorney-General’s Department said the partnership of his Department and the ALS would help reduce the over representation of Aboriginal people in gaol.
The first case involving an Aboriginal defendant took place in 1831 but it has taken 130 years, Duggan said, for the Aboriginality of a defendant to be taken into account. The database will be crucial to the evolution of thought on this issue and will be essential in the development of public policy. The database will also be a valuable tool for Aboriginal communities researching their stories.
The richness of the database is illustrated by its presentation of Neal vs the Queen in the early 1980s in Queensland. It allows the social and political significance of the case to be explored and recognised.
In 1981 Percy Neal, Chair of the Yarrabah community, confronted the manager of the Mission about rotten meat that was being sold to the community. The conversation heated up and Neal told the manager that people wanted to manage their own supplies. They wanted self-determination. Eventually Neal spat on the manager and was brought before the Cairns Magistrate’s Court. He was sentenced to two months’ hard labour.
It was the Bjelke Petersen era and the magistrate told Neal that it was his “type” that caused the violence of blacks towards whites. The blacks, he insisted, were happy, and it was only a few disaffected ones who stirred up all the trouble. The Queensland Court of Criminal Appeal rejected Neal’s appeal and increased his sentence to six months’ hard labour. But in 1982 the High Court found that the Court of Appeal had erred and granted Neal leave to appeal on the original court decision. Chief Justice Gibbs ruled that if the defendant had acted out of discontent at his condition that should have been taken into account – though he shouldn’t have spat on the manager. Justice Lionel Murphy’s judgement included the observation that, if Neal was an agitator, then he was in good company. Agitators were absolutely necessary and Neal was entitled to be an agitator.
It would seem, Mr McAvoy pointed out, that Neal’s agitating was behind Yarrabah’s finally gaining self-determination in 1986, and even behind last year’s Federal Court recognition of Land Rights.
Today Percy Neal is the Mayor of the local Council.
