Legitimate Spaces: Community Legal Centres and Police Accountability

Abstract

In the 1970s, community legal centres (CLCs) - free, independent, community-based legal services - emerged as unique spaces. Traditional legal offices reflected and reinforced the exclusionary nature of the legal profession as places those without capital were unlikely to be able to access. In contrast, CLCs sought to provide legal advocacy for all and their design reflected the inclusive and empowering environment that workers promoted. The workers and their roles were also atypical. CLCs housed legal and non‐legal workers who offered legal information and representation, engaged in educative programs and embarked on law reform and campaigns designed to protect and promote human rights on an everyday 'street-based' level. In 2015, CLCs can still be identified as distinctly different spaces of law where workers transform the legal landscape, the ways citizenship is exercised and the criminal justice system is experienced. Premised on the assumption that 'space' is a forum where identities, philosophies and power are articulated and resisted, this paper draws on archival analysis and semi‐structured interviews, and uses a spatial framework to explore CLCs as spaces of police accountability.