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On the 13 September, 2007 after 20 years of debate the United Nations General Assembly adopted the declaration on the rights of Indigenous People. The Australian Federal Government must now endorse the declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Once the Declaration is endorsed it is the responsibility of Australian governments at all levels to work towards integrating Indigenous Rights into policies and legislation.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will provide a framework to address the many issues of law and justice as it relates to Indigenous people. Law and justice issues concern, social, cultural, economic, land rights, customary law and political rights. Inherently law and justice in Australia is based on western knowledge and western institutions as a product of colonisation. There are attempts in Australia’s criminal justice system to provide law and justice based on Indigenous justice practices.

To accommodate Indigenous justice practices Australia’s criminal justice system has seen the establishment of the “Nunga Aboriginal Courts in South Australia, the Koori Courts in Victoria, the Murri Courts in Queensland, and Circle Sentencing in New South Wales. The second comprises sentencing circles in more remote parts of Western Australia and New South Wales, and Justice Groups in Queensland. There is some overlap between the two; however, the differences reflect the varied contexts of Indigenous justice practices (urban, country, remote) and the different modes of Indigenous participation in the sentencing process”. Australian Government – Australian Institute of Criminology Indigenous courts and justice practices in Australia http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi277t.html

However, what needs to be remembered is that law and justice is often reflected in the light of the times. It was once law and justice: to deny recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders rights to land, to citizenship and removal of their children. It is hoped that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people will shape a future where Indigenous People will have law and justice based on a framework of Indigenous Rights.

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external links

• Indigenous Law Centre – Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales
• Aboriginal People and Bail Courts in NSW
• AITSIS
  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resource links
• Australian Institute of Criminology Indigenous courts and justice practices in Australia
• Black Search for Meaning: Aboriginal Suicide
• Deaths in Custody: 10 Years on from the Royal Commission
  Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No. 203, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra, April 2001
• Law and justice statistics - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: a snapshot, 2006
  
• Disinformation article on mandatory sentencing
  The cases are harrowing: Jamie Wurramara sentenced to one year in jail for stealing A$23 worth of biscuits. Johnno Warramarrba sentenced for stealing A$90 worth of stationery to a juvenile detention center, dying in custody (suicide) just a week before his scheduled release. Both were from Groote Eylandt, an outback mining region that is home to several indigenous communities. The cases are only the tip of the iceberg: the result of draconian two-strikes 'mandatory sentencing' laws promoted by Australian Northern Territory Chief Minister, Denis Burke, who coldly claimed that "there will always be deaths in custody."
• Individual death in custody reports
• NSW Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council
• Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
  National Report (Volumes I-V), Commonwealth of Australia, 1991
• Sydney University's Institute of Criminology
• The Deaths in Custody Watch Committee (Western Australia)
• UN report on mandatory sentencing

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