Legal Education

Principles of Yolngu Traditional Law Document

In the area of legal education, ARDS has been working in assisting Indigenous people with legal difficulties and attempting to dispel some of the misconceptions about the legal system. Many of these misconceptions occur due to the use of complex legal language, which often cause a major difficulty for indigineous people who have english as a second or even tenth language.

An example of one of these misconceptions is the term "Guilty". In conversations with lawyers, many Indigenous people hear lawyers saying, "if you just plead guilty, you'll get through real quick." This has caused a misconception about the term "Guilty" meaning to "get through real quick". Such misconceptions can have disastrous consequences for Indigineous people and we are constantly striving to give Indigenous people a real understanding of the way the legal system works, comparing the system to their own traditional law.

ARDS have a close working relationship with the Aboriginal Interpreter Service (AIS) and we have recently begun to provide formal mentoring for interpreters working at courts in Darwin.