Human Rights Law Centre

In this segment, you'll also hear a speech from Ariane Greenfield, who discussed their observations as a senior practitioner with the Jesuit Social Services Reconnect Program.

The emcee for the rally was Maggie Munn, Director of First Nations Justice at the Human Rights Law Center.

I also now want to invite Michael, Sophie and Matt.

Michael is a member of Voices for Change and has lived experience of both the youth justice and the adult prison system.

Rowan Araf is Executive Director, Principal Lawyer and the founder of the Australian Centre for International Justice.

Rowan has over 15 years of legal practice in the public and community legal sectors and is a Board Director at the Human Rights Law Centre.

Rowan, thank you so much for joining us on After America.

It's so wonderful to have you.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think, you know, in the work that my team and I do at the Human Rights Law Centre, we've been really privileged to walk alongside a lot of lived experience advocates, the wonderful folks at Fig Jam and Flat Out and Beyond Bricks and Bars have shared so graciously so much of their experience and expertise with us.

And we've been really honoured to kind of walk with them on this fight and will continue to.

But it's just something that I think, you know, broad groups of our society think that folks who are inside kind of, you know, deserve what happens to them.

I know how those pieces of litigation start.

How does it start when you are the Human Rights Law Centre?

Yeah, it, it depends, so different ways.

But the, the centre, uh, Phil realised, and I continued this, that networks with civil society across Australia was absolutely critical for the centre's success.

From the government?

... next to no government funding, so that independence was absolutely critical.

So at the federation, we did strong advocacy, but, uh, I felt a relief when I moved to the Human Rights Law Centre, and that relief was not worrying about government cutting your funding when they didn't like the advocacy you were doing, or if you were a community legal centre, the litigation you were bringing against government.

Human Rights Law Centre, largely completely independently funded by individual donations or philanthropic grants.

soHey, this is Greta Ray, and you are listening to 3CR 8:55 AM Radical Radio on digital and streaming live on 3cr.org.au.

This morning we are speaking to Maggie Munn, the First Nations director at the Human Rights Law Centre, regarding the call to Victorian Government to implement a standalone dedicated legal service that challenges injustices done to those behind bars in Victorian prisons.

A recent report from Flat Out and the Human Rights Law Centre titled Dignity Behind Bars highlights the disproportional abuses towards women, trans, and gender diverse people incarcerated in Victoria.

Maggie joins us on the show today to discuss the importance of a dedicated legal service that protects people from inhumane treatment and violations of international law.

Content warning: Some topics discussed during this interview contain information regarding abuses towards women, gender diverse, and First Nations people.

Yeah, it's a really good question, and I guess, um, you know, it's, it's a really tricky system that we work, um, a- alongside or in opposition to, um, with respect to Victorian prisons.

Um, a lot of what happens in Victorian prisons and prisons across the country, it's really difficult to know the extent and severity of it um, unless you're hearing directly from folks who are inside.

Um, and at the Human Rights Law Centre, we've been really lucky to work with Flat Out, um, uh, who's a statewide advocacy service for women and trans and gender diverse folks who are incarcerated, coming out of prison, or at risk of incarceration.

Sarah, Sarah Schwartz, is a lawyer, a human rights lawyer, and founding executive director of the Jewish Council of Australia, which is an organisation committed to fighting antisemitism, but also concurrently supporting Palestinian liberation.

She's also a legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre, a lecturer at Melbourne Law School, And she earned a John Monash Scholarship, which is really, for those of you who don't know, a really prestigious scholarship in 2019 and completed a Master of Laws at Harvard University, focusing on racism, policing, mass incarceration.

I think one of the things we might talk a bit about is the connection between antisemitism and other forms of racism and things like that.

And then we've got a double-decker here of two historians because Ruth Ballint is Professor of History at the University of New South Wales here in Sydney.

I think that's something that Flat Out is trying to do.

And the organisations that we're working with, like the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Human Rights Law Centre, Deseret Social Services, Law and Advocacy Centre for Women, Fitzroy Legal Service, you know, we've got a big coalition of groups who are doing our best.

to raise the truth of what happens in the criminal legal system rather than the stories that are told by politicians at election time.

I think it's been great having you on our program and I think this is an issue just not being really reported much in the mainstream media and I think it's been very important to have this interview to really bring this issue to light.