PLN's (r)evolutionary possibilities

The revolution is here ... Monash Uni law students are laying the groundwork for unleashing fresh generations of lefty lawyers ... Last weekend saw the first networking opportunity sponsored by the Progressive Law Network ... Eager beavers munching on vegan food and talking the talk ... Peach Melba blogs from Yarraside

The People's Republic of Victoria hosted the inaugural Progressive Law Network conference last Saturday (March 19), with 120 students, academics and practitioners gathering at Monash Chambers in Melbourne.

The PLN is an initiative of students from the concrete jungle in Clayton.

It's no real surprise: Monash has regularly and effectively overcome its inferiority complex towards its sandstone colleague in Parkville by positioning itself as the more natural home of human rights thinking and legal dynamism in Melbourne.

The speakers' list was a kind of who's who of progressive lawyering in the country, including Julian Burnside QC, Professor Ian Lowe, Senator Elect Larissa Waters and Brian Walters SC.

With Adam Bandt MP giving the keynote address, it was probably only a couple short of a quorate meeting of the Greens National Executive.

Between chewing on vegan snacks in the breaks, the conference covered issues relating to asylum seekers, the environment, gender and legal issues facing  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Bandt: procedural rights are not sufficientBandt was in fine form, giving an eloquent history of the rule of law and, interestingly, a somewhat equivocal defence of it. 

He navigated the erosion of rights though the latter half of the 20th century, from something substantive to something procedural.

Examples included the right to adequate housing becoming the right to not be evicted improperly; or the right to a pension becoming the right to manage one's superannuation.

Procedural rights, according to Bandt, are insufficient to create a just and equal society.

Burnside generated the usual, and not wholly undeserved, adoration.

However, the standout speaker of the day was Dr Bronwyn Naylor from Monash uni, who explained her theories about alternative access to justice for victims of rape.

Dr Naylor found herself repeatedly awaiting the outcomes of criminal justice reforms and being unimpressed by the consistent failure of reform to assist victims to find justice.

Naylor: standoutConsequently, her approach is pragmatic, but creative and gutsy, proposing alternatives such as conferencing, which has been tried in other jurisdictions with some significant success.

The event was dominated by students, to say the least, and it may take time for the profession to properly engage with this network.

It represents a refreshing approach to the notion of using the law for social justice objectives, which has often focused on legal education, rather than practice.

It also gave your blogger a warm feeling about Generation Y and its robust determination to "keep at it" - a refrain repeated in a naïve and charming way. The speakers couldn't seem to help themselves as they looked into a crowd of eager, twenty-something smiles.

There's a bold declaration on PLN's website that "the Legal (r)Evolution is clearly underway".

From Peach Melba, Yarraside