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The Urgent Need to Review the use of CTOs and Compliance with the UNCRPD Across Australian Jurisdictions
Get PDFIn every Australian jurisdiction, legislation permits mental health service providers and/or mental health tribunals to force people with mental illness to engage in treatment, under Community Treatment Orders (CTOs). Despite considerable efforts made by every Australian state and territory to meet human rights obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (2008; Maylea & Hirsch, 2017), Australia has rates of CTO usage that are very high by world standards (Light, 2019). Even within Australia, rates of CTO usage vary considerably between and within jurisdictions in spite of the legislation being very similar (Light, 2019; Adult mental health quarterly KPI report, 2019). This occurs in the context of mixed evidence about the efficacy of CTOs and a lack of clear understanding of their purpose (Segal et al., 2017; Kisely et al., 2017). The use of CTOs remains one of the most contentious issues in mental health service delivery. Not only is their efficacy unresolved, they also raise serious ethical and human rights concerns. The current debates, and attempts at reform, must be informed by valid and reliable data. This brief commentary will make the case for a research agenda that addresses the minimal research that has been undertaken to address the variations of CTO use across Australian jurisdictions
Access to Justice software development, Participatory Action Research Methods and Researching the Lived Experiences of British Military Veterans
Get PDFParticipatory action research (PAR) methods aim to position the people who are most affected by the issue being studied as equal partners in the research process through a cyclical process of data gathering, data analysis, planning and implementing action and evaluation and reflection. In doing so, it ensures that the research better reflects participants’ ideas, priorities, and needs, thereby enhancing its validity and relevance and the support for the findings and proposed changes. Furthermore, it generates immediately applicable results. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences of developing the UK’s first access to justice platform for veterans and their families through an ongoing PAR project that brought together armed forces veterans, representatives from veterans' service providers, and the Veterans Legal Link team members comprising of legal academics, lawyers, sociologists, computer software designers and graphic designers to collect, interpret, and apply community information to address issues related to the delivery of access to justice. We present findings from Stages 1 and 2 of our three-stage iterative research process which includes the following steps: Understanding and cross-checking the lived experience of the veteran community (Stage 1), developing and testing a prototype of the access to justice platform (Stage 2) and creating the final product and giving real users an opportunity to use the platform (Stage 3). Data collection and analysis from Stage 1 of the study informed the themes that underpinned Stage 2. Specifically, data was collected through the following methods: co-facilitated focus group discussions, a web survey that was codesigned with veteran community stakeholders and remote and digitally enabled ethnographic research methods. We include several reflections that may help legal practitioners and researchers interested in applying PAR within the area of access to justice and the field of legal research
Take (what they say) with a pinch of salt: Engaging in Empirical Research to Understand the Parameters of the ‘Quality’ in ‘Poor-Quality Defence Lawyering’
Get PDFThe criminal defence lawyer is an essential component to the equality of arms, due process, the enforcement of the prosecution’s burden of proof, and to the right to a fair trial. Despite this, little attention has yet to be paid to what the different qualities of legal defence assistance—whether adequate, effective, sufficient, etc.—actually amount to. This article presents the methodology and results from a comparative empirical legal study on the quality of criminal defence advocates in England & Wales and Belgium. The study presented, and the wider PhD research to which it forms a part, seeks to construct a theoretical framework by which poor-quality (insufficient) defence representation may be identified, understood, contextualised, addressed and remedied. To this end, the empirical research undertaken and outlined in the article which follows focuses on a particular source of information: the data acquired from semi-structured interviews held with defence practitioners about their (own) perceptions, opinions and experiences of the quality of defence representation.
The article discusses the extent to which lawyers are a reliable source of data and the usefulness of empirical research as a means by which legal theory may be developed, articulated and tested. If, for example, quality lawyering is to be defined in the hope of demarcating “sufficient” quality from “insufficient”, then it is both natural and necessary to involve the subjects of this research, the lawyers. A qualitative empirical study which utilises constructivist grounded theory and critical realism is, this article suggests, one means by which this delineation may be ascertained, one which also seeks to contextualise the data obtained whilst acknowledging the role and effect of the researcher in question
Passport to neoliberal normality? A critical exploration of COVID-19 vaccine passports.
Get PDFThroughout the COVID-19 pandemic governments across the world including in France, Canada, Lithuania, Austria, Italy, and Ireland imposed ‘vaccine passports’ on the premise that they would curtail transmission of the virus, reduce COVID-19 related mortalities, and enable society to return to neoliberal normality. However, vaccine passports raise several important and troubling issues that have not been given sufficient attention within the social sciences. Therefore, this article offers a critique of vaccine passports. It is structured into three key themes: (a) scientifically and ethically problematic, (b) the death of the social and the ‘Other’, and (c) digital surveillance and freedom. The article begins by exploring how vaccine passports make little scientific sense and further entrench some unvaccinated peoples’ sense of political and medical mistrust. It then discusses how they amplify social divisions, creating the unvaccinated Other in society and intensifying the neoliberal shift towards a post-social, contactless world. The paper closes with an outline of how vaccine passports were cast as enabling a return to neoliberal normality and freedom, hinging upon an assumption of harmlessness while cementing the negative ideology of capitalist realism
Overprotecting professionals from ‘vexatious’ claims under the Hong Kong Mental Health Ordinance: The question of access to justice for persons with mental illness
Get PDFUsing Hong Kong’s mental health legislation as a case study, this article asks whether provisions in domestic mental health legal frameworks which seek to restrict the institution of legal proceedings against those working under such legislation may be justified, given the implications they have on the fundamental right to access to justice. Under section 69 of the Hong Kong Mental Health Ordinance, legal proceedings cannot be brought against anyone acting in pursuance of the Ordinance unless leave has been given by a court, and such leave shall not be given unless the court is satisfied there is a ‘reasonably arguable’ case of bad faith or negligence. Limited case law on section 69 and Hong Kong mental health jurisprudence in general indicate that this test is likely to be applied by judges stringently, with the result that mental health patients face a virtually insurmountable hurdle should they wish to bring actions against professionals for wrongful or negligent treatment under the Ordinance. The author argues that provisions such as section 69 are rooted in discriminatory stereotypes of persons with mental illness as particularly ‘vexatious’ litigants and constitute unjustified barriers to their right to equal access to the courts. In Hong Kong’s case, in particular, section 69 operates within and reinforces a broader legislative framework that is systemically discriminatory against those who fall under the compulsory mental health regime. As such, such provisions must be seriously reconsidered and reformed
Understanding the Law’s Relationship with Sex Work: Introduction to ‘Sex Work and The Law: Does the Law Matter?’
Get PDFThis special issue of The International Journal of Gender, Sexuality and Law, edited by Laura Graham, Victoria Holt and Mary Laing, brings together a range of voices and knowledges on the issue of Sex Work and the Law: Does the Law Matter? Mirroring global and national sex worker campaigns, official consultations, policy and wider debates over the last two decades, there has been much academic interest in the legal responses to sex work (Scoular and O’Neill, 2007; Graham, 2017; Munro and Della Giusta, 2008). Much of this work has evaluated the varied current legal responses to sex work, how they impact sex workers’ lives, and how the law might be reformed. There is also significant academic and governmental interest in comparative research looking at legal responses across jurisdictions (Armstrong and Abel, 2020; Levy, 2014). This special issue takes a broad, critical approach to the relationship between sex work and the law, inspired by Jane Scoular’s (2010) question: does the law matter in sex work? In doing so, this special issue offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the complex relationship between law and sex work. This issue addresses global trends towards criminalisation of sex work, often predicated upon stopping trafficking, and considers the impact of these trends on sex workers, their rights, their working practices, and their marginalisation. It further examines the law’s response to new and emerging issues, such as COVID-19 and digital sex work, reflecting particularly on the varied impacts of over- and under- regulating sex work spaces. This special issue finally reflects on sex workers’ resistance – to current laws, to the expansion of laws, and to their lack of inclusion in debates around law. Throughout this issue, the voices of sex workers are integrated and prioritised, reflecting a commitment to inclusion of expert knowledges around the world
“Shut Up and Take My Money!”: Revenue Chokepoints, Platform Governance, and Sex Workers’ Financial Exclusion
Get PDFSex work regulation is often debated from the perspective of state control: legalization vs decriminalization, ‘end demand’ vs criminalization. Ultimately, these debates center the State as the most significant arbiter in sex workers’ ability to conduct business. This paper contends that while state legislation has a significant effect on the material lives of sex workers, the terms of service of the US-based, privatized financial industry has a more immediate and widespread affect. Most sex workers make use of online payment applications as well as social media, even though both are highly discriminatory toward sex workers, regardless of the legal status of one’s employment as a sex worker, or even the laws in which the worker conducts their business. Rather than being treated as a luxury or privilege, access to both the worldwide web and the global network of banking are essential rights that enable full participation in contemporary society. Through an analysis of platform governance and revenue chokepoints, this paper argues that payment intermediaries function as an extra-legal regulation of sex work that has a more profound effect on sex workers’ material reality than State legislation, as these intermediaries control how they are able to secure business and be paid for it without having to answer to a voting demographic. Most of the world’s major social media and payment processing applications are based in the United States, which enables it to export the repercussions of the stigmatization and criminalization of sex work even within the boundaries of countries with differing legislation. 
Work, Money and Duality: Trading Sex as a Side Hustle, Raven Bowen [Bristol University Press, 2021, 194pp, £26.99 (paperback)]
Get PDFWork, Money and Duality: Trading Sex as a Side Hustle is an explorative piece of work researched and written by Dr Raven Bowen, an academic, activist, and organiser in the UK and Canada. Bowen is the CEO of the National Ugly Mugs (NUM), a UK-wide sex worker safety charity, and the cofounder of the ‘Sex, Work, Law and Society’ Collaborative Research Network of the Law and Society Association (LSA). This book has been created out of her PhD thesis and comes after long term engagement with conversations around exiting, re-entry, and duality
The 'Flipped' Classroom - A Method for Improving Teaching and Learning Even in Large Classes
Get PDFThe Covid-19 pandemic has forced many of us to transform our approach to teaching and learning. Instead of standing in front of a class in the lecture hall or sitting around a table and interactively debating with students, we, as teachers, have found ourselves staring at students (or just their names) through such platforms as Zoom or Teams and overcoming the instances of hesitance or silence by, well, talking more. Sooner or later some, perhaps many, of us recognised this “trap of silence” and in searching for better approaches to online teaching began to use – intentionally or not – the flipped classroom method. In this text, I will share my experience from the spring semester of 2021, in which I used the flipped classroom method in a large group setting (over 150 enrolled students).
In the first part of this text, I will describe the course and implementation of the method. Then I will summarize its advantages and disadvantages and identify questions for further consideration. Throughout the paper, I include the experience of other teachers from the field of law and other disciplines to provide more context for my experience with the flipped classroom