Celebrating achievement: Family Law Assistance Program visited Indonesia with the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Justice

Mr Bennett’s presentation to delegates
from Indonesian universities,
CSOs, DPOs, National Board
of Legal Development and
the National Planning and
Development Agency. 

In early May 2014, two representatives from Monash’s Family Law Assistance Program (FLAP) were invited to participate in a series of strategy meetings in Indonesia aimed at strengthening services provided by Professional Practice courses and university legal aid clinics to justice seekers. Mr Malcolm Bennett (Principal Lawyer and Monash lecturer) and Ms Jennifer Lindstrom (Lawyer and Program Administrator) were invited to represent the Monash Law Faculty along with other delegates, including deans and lecturers from Law faculties around Indonesia.

As part of these meetings, Mr Bennett and Ms Lindstrom presented papers on the operations of FLAP which dealt with matters such as preparing students for participation in clinics, maintaining quality of service and data collection.

Towards the conclusion of the meetings, recommendations were made to encourage students to participate in university clinics by integrating practical subjects into the curriculum and developing information exchange and database systems.

The two FLAP representatives were invited to participate in these sessions by the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Justice (AIPJ), which is a five year program focused on realising the rights of Indonesians, particularly for poor women, vulnerable children and the disabled. The rights to legal identity, fair proceedings, and legal information are seen as particularly crucial to achieving basic economic and social rights.

As a precursor to this visit, Ms Cate Sumner, Lead Advisor of the AIPJ’s Legal Identity Program (which addresses the common lack of legal identity documents in Indonesia), visited FLAP in 2010 and 2013 with delegates from universities and the judiciary in Indonesia. The purpose of these visits was to observe the operation of FLAP, a unique family law clinic in Australia which provides legal advisory services to clients both at court and at a legal clinic on Monash University’s Clayton campus, as part of the Monash Oakleigh Legal Service. The operation of FLAP is considered particularly relevant to Indonesia where there are a significant number of legal aid providers, a number of which operate through university legal aid clinics.

See also:

• Family Law Assistance Program visits Indonesia with the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Justice (pdf)
• Building partnership between University Legal Aid Clinics and Civil Society Organisations
• Video from Professor Frank Bloch's Clinics, Professional Competence and Social Responsibility event