August 01, 2014 | Rosanna Di Grazia
Our submission to the Royal Commission into Family Violence.
Community legal centre work provides the Federation, as the peak body, with a unique understanding of the issues for victims of family violence encountering the justice system.
The Federation has therefore been collaborating with various family violence services and peak bodies for many years on issues of family violence practice, policy and law reform, working with our member centres, particularly our specialist member centres Women’s Legal Service Victoria, Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria, and Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service (Victoria), as well as larger generalist centres.
Our centres are an essential source of free legal assistance for victims/survivors of family violence, despite operating on extremely limited budgets. Victorian policy- and decision-making concerning the civil court elements of the integrated family violence response have long recognised that there is great value in having parallel duty lawyer services for the applicant/affected family member and for
the respondent.
