PIAC is active in making submissions to inquiries and working groups where access to justice is at stake. Our submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s Inquiry into Access to Justice made recommendations on: 

• widening the standing provisions so that a broader class of people, and organisations, can bring civil proceedings in human rights and discrimination cases, especially cases under Commonwealth Disability Standards

• increasing the use of costs capping orders, and changing the costs rules (so that each party bears their own costs) in federal human rights cases

• increasing funding to community legal centres.

In other submissions, PIAC has:

• made recommendations about changing the costs rules (so that each party bears their own costs) in all public interest cases to the NSW Law Reform Commission’s Inquiry into Security for Costs and Associated Orders

• made recommendations about the adequacy of legal aid and resources for Aboriginal Legal Services to the Working Group for the Indigenous Law and Justice Framework

• recommended that courts oversee compulsory alternative dispute resolution (ADR), that those participating in ADR have access to legal representation and that ADR not be used as a substitute for an inadequate court system to the Inquiry into Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Civil Justice System

• highlighted concerns about the increasing tendency to appoint temporary judicial officers and the impact on both the actual and perceived independence of the judiciary to the Inquiry into Australia’s Judicial System and the Role of Judges

• proposed changes to enhance access to justice in relation to the draft Federal Freedom of Information Law Amendment Bills.

PIAC continues to be actively involved in the NSW Legal Assistance Forum and Community Legal Centres NSW Inc (CLCNSW).