Details needed on Koori court

Responding to the Yoorrook Justice Commission report on Indigenous youth justice this week, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the state’s Koori Court had been a “stunning success”. Judge Scott Johns, the judge in charge of the court, agreed. It provided “culturally relevant participation in the sentencing process, which encourages rehabilitation and improves community safety”, he said.

Koori courts were set up in response to the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Their objective is to create sentencing orders that are more culturally appropriate to Aboriginal accused, reducing the rate of reoffending. But the latest available data on outcomes from the courts dates back to 2010 and 2011. The public needs to know more in view of the Yoorrook report recommending separate Indigenous youth justice and child protection systems. It also recommended abolishing detention for offenders under 16.

Given its role as a truth-telling body, the Yoorrook commission needs to be forensically accurate in its presentation of Indigenous history. Its latest report said: “Before European invasion, First Peoples were independent and governed by collective decision-making processes with shared kinship, language and culture. They belonged to and were custodians of defined areas of country.” That view was challenged by historian Geoffrey Blainey, who said: “Traditional Aboriginal society tended to be authoritarian, and far from democratic.”