Arts/Law student gets firsthand experience in Aboriginal justice
Image by: ANU College of Law
ANU Arts/Law student Sienna Lake has a head for law and a heart for social justice.
Last year she was awarded the Aurora Internship and over summer gained on-the-job experience in a legal office while providing much-needed help to the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA).
Majoring in Development Studies, Sienna has long been interested in anthropology, social justice and working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. The Aurora Internship gave her the opportunity to experience that work from a legal perspective.
“I’ve done a few Indigenous studies subjects, but I was really ready to get out of the classroom and get a real-world perspective,” she said.
Sienna worked for six weeks in NAAJA’s criminal section and found the experience revealing, inclusive and at times unexpectedly autonomous.
“I was always allowed to come down to court and after the first couple of weeks I was doing prison visits alone. I was just really involved and included in the work.”
The timing of Sienna’s internship provided an opportunity to watch one of the country’s biggest current legal cases unfold.
“In the last couple of weeks that I was there the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory began so I was able to spend time working on that,” she said.
As well as gaining practical skills, the internship opened Sienna’s eyes to the interaction between Aboriginal people and the legal system, and how that impacts the disproportionate levels of Indigenous incarceration.
“I think the thing that struck me the most while I was there was the prevalence of white lawyers,” she said.
“In the local court on a Monday morning there would be several Aboriginal people waiting for their legal aid lawyers to come to see them and for many, English was their second language.
"They could be sitting in their own trial and not really know what’s going on, even with an interpreter. The lawyers and judges try to be inclusive but it still felt uncomfortable and really showed a disconnect in the legal system up there.”
Applications for the winter 2017 Aurora Internship close Thursday, 31 March.