September 14, 2022

CALD White Paper

CALD parties have long faced barriers that disrupt their access to justice. The CALD White Paper seeks to identify these barriers and suggest ways of addressing them. The purpose of this White Paper is:

  1. To outline for readers in Australia the key findings and recommendations of the CALD Report of the Superdiversity Institute in New Zealand entitled ‘Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Parties in the Courts: A Chinese Case Study’, published November 2019;
  2. To outline the changes to the legal landscape elicited by the CALD Report;
  3. To reflect on the insights that the recommendations of the CALD Report offers to Australia;
  4. To propose an action plan for related initiatives to meet the challenges arising out of increasing superdiversity in Australian courts; and
  5. To contribute to public discourse.

Following its launch in November 2019, the CALD Report was acknowledged as ground-breaking and has materially assisted the consideration of the unique challenges for CALD parties in getting equal access to justice in New Zealand courts among the judiciary, the legal profession, and the broader community. The report was subsequently cited in the New Zealand Court of Appeal case Zheng v Deng [2020] NZCA 614 and in the recent Supreme Court case of Zheng v Deng [2022] NZSC 76. Given the report’s significant influence in New Zealand’s legal landscape and the long-term impacts of the discourse it has sparked, with a Global Symposium in Cultural Experts in the courts in the Sorbonne in 2023, we believe that these developments will provide valuable insight for Australia with its substantially similar legal system and superdiverse population.   To read the report please Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Parties in Australian Courts – Insights from New Zealand (September 2022).

To read the report please click here.

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