Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
· the Report of the Western Australian Royal Commission into events at Skull Creek, Laverton 20;
· the decision of Justice Wells in R v Sydney Williams.21. His Honour sentenced Williams, who had been convicted of the manslaughter of an Aboriginal woman, to a two-year suspended sentence on his agreeing to submit himself to the tribal elders to be ruled and governed by them for one year and to obey their lawful directions.22 The decision was construed (or rather misconstrued) as a form of licensing of 'traditional punishment' and aroused considerable controversy;
· the inadequacy of statistics showing the extent Aborigines figure in the criminal justice system 23;
· relations between Aboriginal Legal Services and State-supported legal aid schemes 24;
· the question of implementing this Commission's recommendations in its Report on Criminal Investigation (1975) as they related specifically to Aborigines 25, in particular the recommendations relating to interpreters, prisoner's friends during police interrogations and the introduction of a notification system when an Aboriginal person is arrested? 26
Impetus for the Reference came also from concerns expressed by other public figures and commentators. In 1976, Senator Bonner introduced a private member's Bill, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (Admissibility of Confessions) Bill, into the Senate.27 The Bill was modelled on this Commission's recommendations in its Report on Criminal Investigation (1975), but also sought to incorporate the guidelines for the police interrogation of Aboriginal suspects enunciated by Justice Forster in R v Anunga.28 The Bill did not proceed past second reading stage. In 1974, GJ Hawkins and RL Misner submitted three reports on the Criminal Justice System in the Northern Territory to the Minister for the Northern Territory. The Reports outlined the inadequacy of the criminal justice system in dealing with Aboriginal offenders and called for a full-scale review 29 Similar concerns about the inappropriateness and ineffectiveness of existing mechanisms to deal with law and order in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory were shared by many Aborigines. In particular, the positive step taken by the Yirrkala Council was a key factor leading to the Reference 30 . The 'Yirrkala proposal' and the more general issues it raises, will be discussed later in this Report.31' But it is helpful to set out here some of the background to that proposal. In 1975, the Council for Aboriginal Affairs 32 visited Arnhem Land. Aboriginal leaders from Ngukurr, Groote Eylandt and Yirrkala appealed to the Council to help them reduce the despair in the communities, brought about especially by drunkenness. The resulting recommendations of the Council for Aboriginal Affairs related primarily to Yirrkala where Aboriginal leaders sought power to appoint local Aboriginal orderlies having limited powers of arrest and detention unimpeded by outside police intervention, with charges being heard by a magistrate sitting with Aboriginal assessors or justices of the peace. They expressed:
strongly-held objections to direct action by European police, to the incarceration of Aborigines at Nhulunbuy, to the hearing o[[sterling]] Aboriginal cases in a European setting, and to the kind and scale of penalties imposed according to European standards.
The members of the Council for Aboriginal Affairs endorsed these proposals in principle, and suggested they be put into effect, at least at Yirrkala but also in other Aboriginal communities 'prepared and able to accept similar responsibilities'.33