News

Letting go of the legalese

17 December 2009

From the 1st of January 2010, laws in Victoria are to be written in plain English. This is part of a wider attempt to simplify the legal system in this state. The Victorian Attorney General, Rob Hulls, said: "Latin and Norman French words have been replaced by modern English words, and concepts now regarded as outdated, such as indictment by grand jury, have been abolished."

Other examples include the word "accused" replacing "defendant", "sentence" replacing "sentencing order" and "set aside" replacing "quashed".

This is an important first step towards simplification. However, there is a long way to go to make the law accessible for everyone.

Access to justice

The Information Access Group recently attended a forum on Access to Justice presented by the Victorian Legal Assistance Forum. This event highlighted the many difficulties faced by people with a disability in dealing with the legal system. Access to information is a key area in this debate.

As many of you know, the literacy levels in our community are extremely low – approximately 46% of Australian adults aged 15 to 74 have a literacy level below what is considered enough to get by in everyday life.

An important part of this discussion is the language level that is used. In some situations, the words "accused", "sentence" and "set aside" are just too complex in themselves.

For example, Aboriginal Resource and Development Services (ARDS) carried out a survey with 200 Yolŋu people of Arnhem Land. They found that over 95% of the people surveyed were unable to correctly identify the meaning of 30 commonly used English legal terms, including "charge", "appear", "consent", "liberty" and "summons".

Click here for more about the research carried out by ARDS.

The cultural gap

At the heart of this problem is not a lack of intelligence on behalf of the Aboriginal people. Instead, the problem lies in the vast cultural gap between mainstream and Aboriginal communities. This gap is caused by a lack of genuine communication which, in turn, is caused by a lack of knowledge of each other's languages. Unfortunately, the result is that too many Aboriginal people are caught up in a legal system that they don't understand.

This same kind of cultural gap exists between many of our institutions and the marginalised groups within our society, including people with disabilities.

Where to from here?

So what are the next steps? While the move towards plain language in Victorian law is timely and essential, we can go beyond the simplification advocated by Mr Hulls.

Much of the available legal information desperately needs to be converted into Easy English so that the wider community can read it and be empowered to understand it.

And for Aboriginal communities, a respect for and use of local language is the only real way that change can take place. In many of our organisations, an amazing array of publications are translated into any number of European or Asian languages, yet translations into widely-used Aboriginal languages such as Yolŋu are rare.

Prioritising accessibility involves cultural change. For many organisations, particularly in the disability sector, accessibility is already a priority. We can only hope that, as a community, we experience a shift towards genuine social inclusion and that somewhere along the line government and legal documents become easier to read.