Victim Voices, Justice and Choices

This workshop will be hosted by ACT Victims of Crime Commissioner, Heidi Yates, and will include presentations from experts in the field – Professor Meg Garvin (Executive Director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute, Lewis Clark Law School School, Portland USA) and Professor Sarah Williams (Professor at the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney).

The workshop will explore different strategies for legal representation of victims of crime, with a focus on criminal procedure. Strategies include: individual and interest-based representation, direct and in-direct representation, organisation-based representation, and the role of amicus.

The workshop will also consider the questions:

• What is representation for?
• What are the legal issues or concerns?
• For whom can or should legal representation be available?

Professor Meg Garvin is a recognised expert on victims’ rights in the United States. She is the Executive Director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute at the Lewis Clark Law School in Portland, which has progressed rights legislation, representation and enforcement across the US, including within Military Justice. She will talk about leveraging both direct legal representation of victims and amicus curiae submissions in U.S. state, federal and military criminal justice as ways to amplify survivor voice.

Professor Sarah Williams from the Faculty of Law & Justice at the University of New South Wales, has expertise in international criminal law and human rights. She will talk about avenues through which victims of international crimes – and civil society organisations that support them – can participate in criminal trials; including as witnesses, as civil parties, and through the mechanism of amicus curiae (friend of the court).