Judicial Officers and Best Practice: Improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Experience of Family Violence Protection Order Proceedings. Literature Review.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s experience of the judicial system is shaped by intersecting factors. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experience high rates of family violence, alongside structural forms of violence and racial inequality through incarceration and the criminal legal system. This intersection influences how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experience mainstream legal systems, including the judicial system. Although Aboriginal sentencing courts exist, the scope of these courts is limited. The vast majority of legal matters involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are being heard in mainstream courts (Cunneen, 2018). As Langton et al. (2020, p. 70) affirm in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s engagement with legal and social support services, commenting on systems abuse specifically:

It is likely that there are further compounding factors for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders engaging with the judicial system, such as cultural approaches and understandings of justice. However, this gap in the literature is another area requiring further investigation.

In this literature review, we highlight areas of investigation in relation to these 'compounding factors' by examining both secondary and grey literature. In so doing, we echo Langton et al.’s (2020) call for further research on the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who are victim-survivors of family violence, and their engagements with the judicial system.

We will first provide a brief overview of scholarship that examines family violence and the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. We will then explore literature that focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s experience of mainstream courts, paying particular attention to family violence protection order proceedings. We group this literature under three key themes. First, we consider the barriers to access and participation in court proceedings. Second, we explore the role of judicial officers. Third, we examine existing literature on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Court Support Officers. In exploring this scholarship, we outline limitations in our current understanding of best practice and the role that judicial officers can play in improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s experience of family violence protection order proceedings.

In this literature review, we centre Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices and consolidate literature that provides insight into both the potential avenues and barriers towards a culturally responsive and respectful family violence protection order system. We conclude this literature review by affirming that any research on this topic must be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and centre their voices and experiences. We also highlight that this research is only one part of a broader picture and call for consideration to be given to structural change and responses that sit outside of settler legal systems.