A young girl born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is not entitled to criminal injuries compensation from her mother drinking excessively while pregnant, the Court of Appeal has decided. It was alleged…
A grand jury decision not to indict a police officer over the shooting death of Michael Brown has sparked protests and questions over the system’s efficacy.
EPA/Michael Reynolds
The idea of the grand jury is already familiar to many Australians through American television legal drama. But its profile just skyrocketed with a grand jury deciding not to indict policeman Darren Wilson…
No longer restricted to elite athletes, personal fitness data can be collected from people jogging, going to the gym – even sleeping.
Josh Janssen/Flickr
Beyond simply counting steps, fitness tracking technology creates personal black boxes that archive everything we do – even sleeping. So it’s not surprising to see that a Calgary law firm, representing…
Reports about the latest investigation into the sexual assaults carried out by Jimmy Savile’s in a hospital in Leeds were invariably led by accounts from a small group of staff that Savile had engaged…
Suspects are protected - but what about victims and witnesses?
Image via Shutterstock
A campaign is at large to secure statutory anonymity for all young people under 18 who are accused of crime. Lawyers, criminologists, judges, sociologists, academics, and politicians are in on it. It is…
When we imprison adults, we are more often than not imprisoning parents. So what happens to their children?
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Over the past six months, Victoria’s prison system has been widely acknowledged as overcrowded and at “breaking point”. Police cells are full of those awaiting a court hearing. The County Court is being…
Amanda Knox in the hands of the Italian police.
Antonio Calanni/AP
Amanda Knox has faced three verdicts in six years over a case in which it was alleged she was part of a brutal knife attack on Meredeth Kercher in Perugia in 2007 that resulted in her death. Although Knox…
Female barristers have had to challenge the male-dominated professional norms of the Bar.
AAP/Gillian Ballard
Australian men and women in relatively equal numbers obtain undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in political science, law, medicine, business and economics. There is no shortage of women academics…
Weighing up cost and benefit: proposed legal aid cuts are a perversion of justice.
Lonpicman
In an adversarial criminal justice system like the one we have in England and Wales, access to justice depends on access to lawyers. The court system is complicated and confusing, a heady mix of archaic…
The general movement in medical practice and ethics over the last 40 years has been away from paternalism towards strong respect for the autonomy of individuals. So a recent judgement in the High Court…
In 2010, the European Ombudsman ruled that the European Medicines Agency should open access to clinical trials data when companies applied to get their drugs on the market. The ombudsman decided public…
Will vouchers to access legal aid services be the fix the Australian legal system needs?
AAP/Lee Besford
Most Australians with legal problems are unlikely to be able to access the help they need. Unless you’re wealthy and can pay for a private lawyer, or extremely poor and disadvantaged and able to access…