WHITE FELLA'S JUSTICE GETS A NEW HEARING

"We're trying to divert Tony to the drug court," says the magistrate.
A small Aboriginal woman, whose son is in trouble again, sits at the
bar table at Adelaide's Nunga court, next to her daughter and a
grandson, three or four years old, who stares at the courtroom through
the back of a chair. A woman elder from the Aboriginal community is
next to the magistrate.

"Are you happy with that?" Port Adelaide magistrate Chris Vass asks
Tony's mother. "Because drugs are the problem, aren't they? If he
keeps this up, he'll end up in prison and we all know there are more
drugs in there than outside."

Tony, who is on remand for a series of offences, including breaking
and entering, larceny and resisting police, is then brought in and
sits down. His head is partly shaven and his feet drum nervously on
the floor.

"You should give the drug court a try," Vass tells him. "But there's
no good doing it, mate, unless you do it. This is your chance to prove
yourself, eh?"

Tony listens intently as the magistrate says his girlfriend has been
accepted into a drug-diversion program and it is likely he will be,
too.

"I don't think you're a criminal inside yourself," Vass says. "Get off
the drugs and you can get out of the crime."

Tony agrees that if he gets into the drug court, he will still visit
Vass once a month, for a chat."I'll do that," Tony says.

"I mean every month," the magistrate counters with a warning look. "If
you don't come, I'm going to assume you're not going to be doing the
right thing."

Tony turns and hugs his mother before being led back into remand."It's
in Tony's interest, and in the public's interest, to get him free of
drugs," Vass says. "All his criminality has been associated with
drug-taking."

This informal courtroom procedure is practised every fortnight in a
unique Aboriginal court at Port Adelaide created by and presided over
by Chris Vass. Before Vass was a magistrate, he worked in Papua New
Guinea for 15 years. That got him thinking about the interaction
between Western and indigenous law and culture. Aboriginal people are
typically over-represented in Port Adelaide's courts, and he felt
there was no better place to be innovative than at home.

Since it began in July last year, outside interest has been building
in the Nunga court, the regional Aboriginal name given to it by the
local Aboriginal community. Western Australia is carrying out a
feasibility study, and Victoria, which made a commitment to explore
the idea in its Aboriginal Justice Agreement released in May, is keen
to model a Koori court along the same lines.

Vass was careful in the way he adapted his court because the common
law system of justice has rigid rules about court procedures. But
there are no rules, only tradition, behind the notion of putting a
magistrate at the most elevated point of a court. In the Nunga court,
Vass sits in front of, or at, the bar table and everyone else sits
around. "It's at eye-level and it's less intimidating," he says.

Nobody has to rise to speak and the requisite bow to the magistrate
when entering or leaving a sitting court has been waived. Aboriginal
people rarely stand up and talk, says Vass; their way of doing things
would be to sit on the ground.

But the most substantial difference is in the court procedure that
gives anyone the right to speak on whatever subject they choose.
Defendants can discuss their past or their future, why they did things
and what they can do about it. Their families offer their views and
community members can have a say.

One of the great frustrations for Aboriginal people, Vass says, is
that they see courts as a place to go to be locked up, not listened
to. Lawyers might say things the defendant felt should not be said and
leave out what goes to the heart of what happened.

"They say things like, 'I haven't been caught, but I have done things
before that were bad', Vass says. "Or they might say, 'Well, I've been
smoking dope every night'. A lawyer will never tell me that."

SUCH contexts are used to shape sentencing. When he can, Vass will
refer defendants to drug programs or counselling rather than prison.

"You probably need some counselling to help you not be so angry," Vass
tells Sharon who is 18, but looks younger. She stands before him,
silent and sullen, charged with assaulting her mother, whom she has
been forbidden to see.

"We're setting this young lady up for disaster," he says before
altering her bail conditions so she can at least phone her mother and
ask her to visit.

Sometimes he will defer sentencing for a year to see what changes a
person is willing to make, but he insists his court is not the soft
option. Last year a young man was up on a serious offence and they had
a good talk. "I asked him, 'What sort of penalty to you think you
should get?' and he said, 'Jail, you should put me in jail'. I said:
'Well, yes, I think I will,' and he said: 'That's OK, at least you've
listened'. He was a lot happier than if he had been standing in the
dock and his lawyer had said something."

The court is open to any Aboriginal person pleading guilty to offences
in the Port Adelaide area. The court cannot handle trials or any
sitting in which the crime is contested. Still, every second Tuesday,
up to 40 cases can go through. Its impact on recidivism is so far only
anecdotal, but at least the standing of the court has been raised
among Aboriginal people. The elders who join the proceedings have no
delegated powers, but can give advice on sentencing. Their involvement
gives the process tacit support.

"Sometimes, after sentencing someone, the person next to me will say:
'Right brother, now I know you, you've been given a chance and I'll be
keeping an eye on you out there in the community'," Vass says.

After 11 years at Port Adelaide, Vass has been transferred to the
court in Holden Hill, in Adelaide's southern suburbs, where he will
introduce a second Nunga court. He expects the one at Port Adelaide to
continue to thrive.

"It's a bit personality driven, something I've started and done, which
in a sense has relied on me - which is bad," he says. "But others are
starting to take over. It is starting to happen."