Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1748833
S. Chalmers
ABSTRACT The article presents a reading of the painting Native Dignity (1860) by Anglo-Australian artist S T Gill. In treating the painting first as an artefact, the article shows how a discourse of dignity is embedded in it, in a way that registers its constituent understandings, anxieties, and contradictions. The result is a genealogy of ‘native dignity’ that traces its movement between Europe and Australia – a movement that reveals its terrible cost for Aboriginal peoples. While the price of ‘native dignity’ might not have been apparent in Europe, in the searing antipodal light it became all too clear that the concept, which was supposed to uphold the dignity of all humans, upheld only the dignity of European Man; that this supposedly natural property remained an artificial one that Aboriginal peoples could possess only if remade in the image of the European. If that is what the painting reveals when analysed as an artefact, then just as important is what it reveals when seen as an artwork. Here the article shows how the contradiction that lingered in ‘native dignity’ was innervated by the painting – how Native Dignity confronted its European audiences with nerve-force, revealing like a harlequin in a public square the underbelly of European Man’s native dignity.
摘要本文阅读了英澳艺术家S T Gill的画作《土著尊严》（1860）。文章首先将这幅画视为一件艺术品，展示了尊严的话语是如何嵌入其中的，以一种记录其组成部分的理解、焦虑和矛盾的方式。其结果是一个“原住民尊严”的谱系，追溯了它在欧洲和澳大利亚之间的运动——这场运动揭示了它给原住民带来的可怕代价。虽然“本土尊严”的代价在欧洲可能并不明显，但从对足的角度来看，很明显，这个本应维护全人类尊严的概念只维护了欧洲人的尊严；这种所谓的自然财产仍然是一种人造财产，只有按照欧洲人的形象重塑，原住民才能拥有。如果这就是绘画作为艺术品分析时所揭示的，那么同样重要的是它作为艺术品所揭示的。在这里，这篇文章展示了“本土尊严”中挥之不去的矛盾是如何被这幅画所支配的——《本土尊严》如何用神经力量面对欧洲观众，像公共广场上的丑角一样揭示了欧洲人本土尊严的软肋。
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Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1774971
Theodore Bennett
ABSTRACT This article uses cultural analysis to explain why mass public nudity events are excepted and exempted from the typical legal regulations around public nudity. It uses two specific examples, namely the London version of the World Naked Bike Ride and the Tasmanian Nude Solstice Swim, to illustrate the broader connections between mass public nudity events and systems of dress regulation. It argues that whilst the legal allowance of these events breaks from the general pattern of prohibitions around public nudity, this disparity can be accounted for by reading these events through the interpretive framework of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of ‘carnival’. This framework reveals that these licensed forms of carnival transgression affirm the limits of the dress regulations that they superficially appear to challenge, and that the legal allowance of these events performs the same function as the typical legal regulations around public nudity.
{"title":"State of undress: law, carnival and mass public nudity events","authors":"Theodore Bennett","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1774971","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1774971","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article uses cultural analysis to explain why mass public nudity events are excepted and exempted from the typical legal regulations around public nudity. It uses two specific examples, namely the London version of the World Naked Bike Ride and the Tasmanian Nude Solstice Swim, to illustrate the broader connections between mass public nudity events and systems of dress regulation. It argues that whilst the legal allowance of these events breaks from the general pattern of prohibitions around public nudity, this disparity can be accounted for by reading these events through the interpretive framework of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of ‘carnival’. This framework reveals that these licensed forms of carnival transgression affirm the limits of the dress regulations that they superficially appear to challenge, and that the legal allowance of these events performs the same function as the typical legal regulations around public nudity.","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"199 - 219"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1774971","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49435265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1819266
P. Crofts
The recently concluded Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry presented evidence of malfeasance, malpractice, and unethical and criminal behaviour by the banks. This article analyses the narratives proffered by the banks that were reported on the front pages of Australian media during the Royal Commission. This article analyses the strategies of denial and neutralisation used by the banks, including literal denial (nothing happened), interpretive denial (something happened but it’s not what you think) and implicatory denial (it happened but action is not needed and/or possible), and provides insight into the ways powerful institutions and individuals intervene in, construct, and support moral and legal codes.
{"title":"Strategies of denial and the Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry","authors":"P. Crofts","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1819266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1819266","url":null,"abstract":"The recently concluded Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry presented evidence of malfeasance, malpractice, and unethical and criminal behaviour by the banks. This article analyses the narratives proffered by the banks that were reported on the front pages of Australian media during the Royal Commission. This article analyses the strategies of denial and neutralisation used by the banks, including literal denial (nothing happened), interpretive denial (something happened but it’s not what you think) and implicatory denial (it happened but action is not needed and/or possible), and provides insight into the ways powerful institutions and individuals intervene in, construct, and support moral and legal codes.","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"21 - 42"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1819266","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48339449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1861712
E. Methven
ABSTRACT Several commissions of inquiry have recommended the reform or abolition of laws that criminalise the use of offensive language in Australia. These criminal offences have been linked to the over-policing and deaths in custody of Indigenous Australians. Australian state and territory governments have not only ignored these recommendations; they have also added new weapons to the police officer’s arsenal to control and punish swearing in public. Through an analysis of several case studies sourced from coronial inquiries and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, this article argues that there is a need for urgent reform of laws that criminalise offensive language.
{"title":"A death sentence for swearing: the fatal consequences of the failure to decriminalise offensive language","authors":"E. Methven","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1861712","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1861712","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Several commissions of inquiry have recommended the reform or abolition of laws that criminalise the use of offensive language in Australia. These criminal offences have been linked to the over-policing and deaths in custody of Indigenous Australians. Australian state and territory governments have not only ignored these recommendations; they have also added new weapons to the police officer’s arsenal to control and punish swearing in public. Through an analysis of several case studies sourced from coronial inquiries and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, this article argues that there is a need for urgent reform of laws that criminalise offensive language.","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"73 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1861712","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49493706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1841372
D. McDonald
ABSTRACT Since the 1980s there has been a transformation in understandings of institutional child sexual abuse. While these developments have been long overdue, shifts in understanding other forms of child abuse and neglect have been much more incremental. This is particularly true of abuse occurring in the family. This article examines the Wood Royal Commission, which operated from 1994 until 1997 in the Australian state of New South Wales. Unlike inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse, its scope was not limited in terms of the scenarios of abuse that it investigated. Notwithstanding this, a flawed approach saw it effectively erase familial abuse as a sufficient matter of concern. While scholarly research on royal commissions frequently points to an inquiry’s terms of reference, or the failure of governments to implement recommendations in an inquiry’s aftermath, the Wood Royal Commission reveals a failure in investigative decision making. By positioning this Royal Commission within the broader terrain of public inquiries into child sexual abuse, I demonstrate how intrafamilial abuse continues to be neglected.
{"title":"Classifying the monster: the erasure of familial child sexual abuse in the Wood Royal Commission Paedophile Inquiry","authors":"D. McDonald","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1841372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1841372","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Since the 1980s there has been a transformation in understandings of institutional child sexual abuse. While these developments have been long overdue, shifts in understanding other forms of child abuse and neglect have been much more incremental. This is particularly true of abuse occurring in the family. This article examines the Wood Royal Commission, which operated from 1994 until 1997 in the Australian state of New South Wales. Unlike inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse, its scope was not limited in terms of the scenarios of abuse that it investigated. Notwithstanding this, a flawed approach saw it effectively erase familial abuse as a sufficient matter of concern. While scholarly research on royal commissions frequently points to an inquiry’s terms of reference, or the failure of governments to implement recommendations in an inquiry’s aftermath, the Wood Royal Commission reveals a failure in investigative decision making. By positioning this Royal Commission within the broader terrain of public inquiries into child sexual abuse, I demonstrate how intrafamilial abuse continues to be neglected.","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"91 - 108"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1841372","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59721354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1868282
David B. MacDonald
Abstract The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada was a post-judicial exercise in truth telling after seven generations of residential schooling for Indigenous children. I outline some of the strengths and weaknesses of the process and engage with a range of critiques from settler and Indigenous academics and theorists. Section One covers the lengthy process of Survivors to seek redress for their experiences. Section Two covers the judicial processes that preceded the TRC. Section Three focuses on the TRC, and some of its strengths and weaknesses through three distinct but slightly overlapping lenses. I engage with settler critics who argue that the TRC was either too pro-Survivor, too anti-state, anti-school, and anti-church. I contrast this with Indigenous critiques from the resurgence school who saw the TRC as too close to government. I conclude with the transformative reconciliation school, advanced by Indigenous and settler academics working together to take the best aspects of the TRC and apply them.
{"title":"Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Assessing context, process, and critiques","authors":"David B. MacDonald","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1868282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1868282","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada was a post-judicial exercise in truth telling after seven generations of residential schooling for Indigenous children. I outline some of the strengths and weaknesses of the process and engage with a range of critiques from settler and Indigenous academics and theorists. Section One covers the lengthy process of Survivors to seek redress for their experiences. Section Two covers the judicial processes that preceded the TRC. Section Three focuses on the TRC, and some of its strengths and weaknesses through three distinct but slightly overlapping lenses. I engage with settler critics who argue that the TRC was either too pro-Survivor, too anti-state, anti-school, and anti-church. I contrast this with Indigenous critiques from the resurgence school who saw the TRC as too close to government. I conclude with the transformative reconciliation school, advanced by Indigenous and settler academics working together to take the best aspects of the TRC and apply them.","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"150 - 174"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1868282","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47852360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1816134
E. Schofield-Georgeson
ABSTRACT This paper explores the critical theorisation of royal commissions. It does so by examining the conduct and aftermath of a pivotal Australian executive enquiry into banking following the Great Depression. While generally accepting the critical theorisation of royal commissions as serving to ‘legitimate political subjection’, this paper argues that the current theorisation of royal commissions requires a more nuanced understanding of the State and capital, particularly in light of the role played by the Australian legislature in the wake of the first banking royal commission. From such a perspective, it is possible to see that progressive legal and political change is possible through the royal commission process but that such change is contingent upon particular political and constitutional formations within the Australian State.
{"title":"The state and capital: lessons from the first Australian banking royal commission and its aftermath","authors":"E. Schofield-Georgeson","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1816134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1816134","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper explores the critical theorisation of royal commissions. It does so by examining the conduct and aftermath of a pivotal Australian executive enquiry into banking following the Great Depression. While generally accepting the critical theorisation of royal commissions as serving to ‘legitimate political subjection’, this paper argues that the current theorisation of royal commissions requires a more nuanced understanding of the State and capital, particularly in light of the role played by the Australian legislature in the wake of the first banking royal commission. From such a perspective, it is possible to see that progressive legal and political change is possible through the royal commission process but that such change is contingent upon particular political and constitutional formations within the Australian State.","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"5 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1816134","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45780416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1855950
K. Gleeson, Sinéad Ring
This article uses the framework of transitional justice to examine two prominent examples of national public inquiries into institutional child abuse: the Irish Commission into Child Abuse of 2000–09 and the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse of 2013–2017. It provides a detailed account of the practical workings of each inquiry in the context of the Irish and Australian political and legal environments, with a view to highlighting the particular nation-building function each played in informing a narrative about transitioning from the past to the present. Public inquiries are increasingly used by democratic states as a form of political and legal reckoning for mass crimes committed on children in the care of the state, with inspiration drawn from other examples of the political redress of atrocities (such as war crimes). While transitional justice approaches to peacetime human rights abuses have much to offer in their promise of truth recovery and accountability, they are limited in their ability to achieve justice in the context of consolidated democracies where the ‘transition’ from the past to the present is ambiguous and incomplete. This article points to the benefits of the national public inquiry approach to addressing institutional child abuse, while offering cautions about the expectations of transitional justice in this context, through the landmark examples of Ireland and Australia.
{"title":"Confronting the past and changing the future? Public inquiries into institutional child abuse, Ireland and Australia","authors":"K. Gleeson, Sinéad Ring","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1855950","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1855950","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses the framework of transitional justice to examine two prominent examples of national public inquiries into institutional child abuse: the Irish Commission into Child Abuse of 2000–09 and the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse of 2013–2017. It provides a detailed account of the practical workings of each inquiry in the context of the Irish and Australian political and legal environments, with a view to highlighting the particular nation-building function each played in informing a narrative about transitioning from the past to the present. Public inquiries are increasingly used by democratic states as a form of political and legal reckoning for mass crimes committed on children in the care of the state, with inspiration drawn from other examples of the political redress of atrocities (such as war crimes). While transitional justice approaches to peacetime human rights abuses have much to offer in their promise of truth recovery and accountability, they are limited in their ability to achieve justice in the context of consolidated democracies where the ‘transition’ from the past to the present is ambiguous and incomplete. This article points to the benefits of the national public inquiry approach to addressing institutional child abuse, while offering cautions about the expectations of transitional justice in this context, through the landmark examples of Ireland and Australia.","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"109 - 133"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1855950","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43616573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1868281
D. Hoogenboom, Joanna R. Quinn
ABSTRACT Truth commissions are a specialized form of commission of inquiry, established to confront the legacies of past human rights abuses and atrocities. While it is recognized that a number of different actors are responsible for the creation of truth commissions and other mechanisms of transitional justice, little is understood about the role of the diaspora. This paper details the influence of the Haitian diaspora in Montreal, Canada, in the creation of a truth commission in Haiti in 1995, the Commission Nationale de Vérité et de Justice. It demonstrates the need to better understand the importance of the diaspora in truth commissions and other forms of transitional justice.
{"title":"Transitional justice and the diaspora: Examining the impact of the Haitian diaspora on the Haitian truth commission","authors":"D. Hoogenboom, Joanna R. Quinn","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1868281","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1868281","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Truth commissions are a specialized form of commission of inquiry, established to confront the legacies of past human rights abuses and atrocities. While it is recognized that a number of different actors are responsible for the creation of truth commissions and other mechanisms of transitional justice, little is understood about the role of the diaspora. This paper details the influence of the Haitian diaspora in Montreal, Canada, in the creation of a truth commission in Haiti in 1995, the Commission Nationale de Vérité et de Justice. It demonstrates the need to better understand the importance of the diaspora in truth commissions and other forms of transitional justice.","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"134 - 149"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1868281","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48956444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10383441.2020.1868626
E. Schofield-Georgeson, T. Anthony
These introductory remarks outline the themes and articles that comprise this special issue of the Griffith Law Review on ‘Commissions of Inquiry’. The guest editors explain how the work collected in this issue draws on a rich interdisciplinary scholarship and critical analysis to reveal both the prospects as well as limitations of such inquiries. The articles tackle issues ranging from banking and finance capitalism, to child sexual abuse; as well as First Nations’ experiences of imprisonment, deaths in custody and settler colonial violence; and international Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. In late 2020, Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly won Government support for a First Nations truth and justice commission. One of the early observations by Professor Gregory Phillips, a Waanyi-Jaru man, was the need for a genuine truth-telling process alongside national healing and substantive justice. This is a sobering message and made with reference to the limits of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, especially in relation to its failure to deliver on justice. All too often, commissions of inquiry and truth-telling processes have good intentions but are hamstrung by legal and bureaucratic requirements and a lack of government will to follow-through with implementing the fullness of recommendations. By 2021, the failures of government to implement core recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody year have come to be regarded as contributing to the subsequent 474 First Nations deaths in custody. This special issue of Griffith Law Review on Commissions of Inquiry discusses the strengths and weaknesses of inquiries. At best, they enable stories of the marginalised and oppressed to be heard, heal and strengthen survivors and provide a mechanism for justice to be delivered. At worst, they are a decoy for government action and retraumatise survivors. The analyses of the inquiries examined in this collection demonstrate the need to learn from the successes and failures of commissions of inquiry of this kind. The articles convey the substantial scope for inquiries to provide more meaningful outcomes for survivors and public policy. To do this, those responsible for wrongs and crimes need to be held accountable. Yet rarely does this occur in adequate measure. This failure curtails the capacity of inquiries to make amends through reconciliation and
{"title":"Introduction to the Griffith Law Review Commission of Inquiry special issue","authors":"E. Schofield-Georgeson, T. Anthony","doi":"10.1080/10383441.2020.1868626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1868626","url":null,"abstract":"These introductory remarks outline the themes and articles that comprise this special issue of the Griffith Law Review on ‘Commissions of Inquiry’. The guest editors explain how the work collected in this issue draws on a rich interdisciplinary scholarship and critical analysis to reveal both the prospects as well as limitations of such inquiries. The articles tackle issues ranging from banking and finance capitalism, to child sexual abuse; as well as First Nations’ experiences of imprisonment, deaths in custody and settler colonial violence; and international Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. In late 2020, Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly won Government support for a First Nations truth and justice commission. One of the early observations by Professor Gregory Phillips, a Waanyi-Jaru man, was the need for a genuine truth-telling process alongside national healing and substantive justice. This is a sobering message and made with reference to the limits of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, especially in relation to its failure to deliver on justice. All too often, commissions of inquiry and truth-telling processes have good intentions but are hamstrung by legal and bureaucratic requirements and a lack of government will to follow-through with implementing the fullness of recommendations. By 2021, the failures of government to implement core recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody year have come to be regarded as contributing to the subsequent 474 First Nations deaths in custody. This special issue of Griffith Law Review on Commissions of Inquiry discusses the strengths and weaknesses of inquiries. At best, they enable stories of the marginalised and oppressed to be heard, heal and strengthen survivors and provide a mechanism for justice to be delivered. At worst, they are a decoy for government action and retraumatise survivors. The analyses of the inquiries examined in this collection demonstrate the need to learn from the successes and failures of commissions of inquiry of this kind. The articles convey the substantial scope for inquiries to provide more meaningful outcomes for survivors and public policy. To do this, those responsible for wrongs and crimes need to be held accountable. Yet rarely does this occur in adequate measure. This failure curtails the capacity of inquiries to make amends through reconciliation and","PeriodicalId":45376,"journal":{"name":"Griffith Law Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"1 - 4"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10383441.2020.1868626","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49633884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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