Championing change
Shifting systems and policies towards access to justice
Tackling issues of discrimination and injustice has seen the Justice and Equity Centre (JEC) work on a wide range of cases and legal submissions over the years. As a long-term partner, Mallesons share the JEC’s commitment to access to justice and offer supports for its advocacy and action for fairer systems and law reform.
Practicing law and working for policy reform for more than 40 years, the Justice and Equity Centre (JEC) in Sydney helps build a fairer, stronger society by tackling injustice and inequality. Its team is involved in a whole range of matters — from disability rights to a just transition to clean energy — to support a fairer society, free of discrimination. Through our multi-faceted partnership, Mallesons’ lawyers work with the JEC in its strategic litigation and law reform submissions.
Many of our lawyers have taken part in secondments with the JEC, enabling them to benefit from training and first-hand experience of advocating for the rights of vulnerable people. “I worked on a discrimination claim on behalf of a client who needs to travel everywhere with an assistance animal,” says Sarah Charak, the JEC secondee and solicitor in our Dispute Resolution Team. “What this exposes is that there's a whole group of people in her situation who aren't able to just get from place A to B easily the way that others might just take for granted.”
Sarah’s experience in the JEC’s Strategic Litigation team showed her the importance of an approach to legal support that changes systems, rather than resolving a single dispute. “They take on test cases or strategic casework where they think there's going to be an outcome for a whole cohort of people, not just for an individual client,” she says.
In our work together on advocacy for policy and law reform, the JEC and Mallesons have collaborated on research and submissions for a range of justice issues. A submission to the Anti-Discrimination Act Review in New South Wales was supported by in-depth analysis from multiple Mallesons’ teams on areas such as intersectional discrimination and vilification tests. ”Mallesons bring such expertise in running big litigation, and in particular areas of law and research,” says Jonathan Hunyor, Chief Executive Officer at the JEC.
This is just one example of our advocacy work together, with other notable initiatives including drafting submissions in response to the Commonwealth Government’s changes to racial discrimination laws in 2014, and analysis and recommendations based on reforms to Australia’s freedom of information put forward in 2010.
In one major project, our combined efforts contributed to safeguarding access to medical treatment for asylum seekers. The JEC had been advocating for more humane treatment of asylum seekers held in Australian immigration detention centres, with a particular focus on access to healthcare. Migration regulations did not mandate minimum healthcare standards for people held in immigration detention , leaving many without access to life-saving treatment.
Mallesons supported the JEC to research and deliver the In Poor Health: Health care in Australian immigration detention report in 2018 and assisted with pro bono case work for individual clients. Following the report’s release, the Commonwealth Government made a commitment in March 2019 to provide antiviral therapy to people living with hepatitis C in Australian immigration detention centres.
The people we work with live daily with discrimination and they know the issues that matter most to them. The challenge they face is how do you shift a system? And that's the role we see ourselves playing.
Jonathan Hunyor, Chief Executive Officer, Justice and Equity Centre