Abstract
This article explains the way that Australian coroners’ courts often fail Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We discuss the gap between the expectations of families of the deceased and the realities of the process of the coroner’s court. The discussion is illustrated with reference to real-life examples, drawn from the authors’ experiences representing the families of the deceased.
Highlights
Well-functioning coroners’ courts serve as important tools to hold our governments and their officials accountable, but they have the power to drive reform and play a therapeutic role for the families of the deceased and their communities
Despite recommendations made almost 30 years ago by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) for coronial inquests to take on this broader scope, most coroners have not embraced the recommendations in practice
We provide some background on the history of the coronial system and how it operates today in Australia
Summary
Well-functioning coroners’ courts serve as important tools to hold our governments and their officials accountable, but they have the power to drive reform and play a therapeutic role for the families of the deceased and their communities. There has been relatively little academic attention paid to the functioning of coroners’ courts in Australia, and the experience of First Nations peoples in those processes remains under-studied.1 We share these insights from the field and our research to foster critical scholarship and law reform projects aligned to the interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who routinely encounter these systems of death review. This impunity relies on the kind of legal neutrality that retells the stories of Indigenous realities in its own terms, incentivising particular forms of participation from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parties, writes Tanganekald and Meintangk woman Irene Watson: Australia like other colonising states has been successful in building a white nation, one based on our exclusion and inclusion. Every time there’s been a breakdown in the procedure, the family and community on Palm Island are being subjected to more trauma, drama and unnecessary grandstanding by politicians. (Uncle Sam Watson, Sydney Morning Herald 2007: para. 12)
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