Should we be afraid of robo-justice?
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Automated tools could help encourage access to justice in areas such as divorce, owners corporation disputes and small value contracts.
Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six who were wrongly convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings.
PA
The long-term effects are much worse for exonerees than for guilty prisoners.
For all offences in the higher courts, the proportion of Victorians sent to prison is actually higher than the national average.
AAP/Paul Miller
An overriding focus on increasing sentences may not necessarily be the best means of redressing the harm caused by sex offences.
Bob Brown was arrested under an anti-protest law after refusing to obey police directions to leave a forestry coup at Lapoinya State Forest.
AAP
Bob Brown’s successful High Court challenge to an anti-protest law in Tasmania will cause many states to review their own protest laws.
A court sketch of Brady from 2013.
PA/Elizabeth Cook
The High Court ruled that Brady won’t be buried in the way he wanted because of his crimes in life.
An unsent text message can be a will, an Australian court has decided.
Dragon Images/Shutterstock
Modern courts may be flexible in working out what your will is after you die, but that doesn’t mean you should be complacent.
A woman from a Rohingya family, in the makeshift provided by a NGO Zakat Foundation of India near Madanpur Khadar, New Delhi.
EPA
What effect does India’s legal precariousness and lack of institutionalised support have on the ground? Most refugee groups have to rely on themselves.
The key messages from Thursday’s COAG meeting were about co-operation and a nationally consistent approach to counter-terrorism.
AAP/Lukas Coch
National discussions about counter-terrorism strategy are welcome, but require robust follow-up if they are to improve responses to terrorism.
One person, one vote.
David Goldman/AP Photo
In an upcoming case about Wisconsin’s voting districts, the Supreme Court will tackle legal questions that have long gone unanswered.
In sentencing, judges usually consider and balance four main purposes of punishment.
AAP/Darren England
In historic cases the potential for a sentence to rehabilitate, incapacitate or deter the offender is largely insignificant – leaving the focus solely on retribution.
What may be deemed in the public interest today may not be so in a decade’s time.
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Despite arguments that it is too loose, ambiguous and easy to hide behind, the ‘public interest’ is an integral part of the discourse, law, regulation and governance of modern democracies.
Women activists from Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan and Muslims for Secular Democracy protest against the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and their clerics, October 2016.
EPA/DIVYAKANT SOLANKI
The abolition of ‘instant divorce’ practice in India highlights how Muslim women are successfully and progressively changing gender rights.
Well we’ve got to come up with something, don’t we?
EPA
The UK government is letting its irrational hatred of European lawmakers shape its policy proposals.
Forensic techniques are getting more sophisticated.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
Genetic evidence has become a critical aspect of modern criminal investigations. What are the methods and approaches used in present-day DNA forensics?
Judge May Lahey (left) with actor Jean Harlow in 1932.
The Cornell Daily Sun (digitally coloured image)
Dame Roma Mitchell is remembered as Australia’s first female judge. But Queenslander May Lahey beat her to the punch when she became a judge in Los Angeles in 1928. Her lack of recognition is symptomatic of how Australia remembers expats, particularly women.
The ECJ is a particularly contentious Brexit topic.
EPA/Julien Warnand
The UK government seems to be accepting some role for the court after leaving the European Union.
Private companies are policing online hate without independent oversight or regulation, which has serious implications and poses risks for basic human rights and freedoms.
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After violence in Charlottesville, internet firms are erasing bigoted content. But should private companies serve as unaccountable regulators and be responsible for policing complex social issues?
A statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam stands on the campus of the University of North Carolina.
Jonathan Drake/Reuters
Should they stay or should they go?
Niocr25/Shutterstock
Vladimir Putin position in the Kremlin looks more secure than ever, and he has shut down almost all the avenues for a genuine challenge.
‘Now, did you understand all that?’
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‘If we can’t understand our rights, we have no rights.’ But efforts are being made to rebalance the inequalities.