Equality before the Law Bench Book

Equality before the Law Bench Book

Providing for community and individual difference in court proceedings

The Equality before the Law Bench Book provides NSW judicial officers with:

statistics and information about the different values, cultures, lifestyles, socioeconomic disadvantage and/or potential barriers in relation to full and equitable participation in court proceedings for nine different groups of people.

guidance about how judicial officers might need to take account of this information in court — from the start to the conclusion of court proceedings. It provides guidance only and is not meant to be in any way prescriptive.

The Equality before the Law Bench Book is available to download as a complete PDF document or as individual sections.

Equality before the Law Bench Book — Complete document (pdf 1.3 MB)

Preliminary pages (pdf 58 KB)

Section 1 — Equality before the law (pdf 36 KB)

Section 2 — Indigenous people (pdf 380 KB)

Section 3 — People from an ethnic or migrant background (pdf 149 KB)

Section 4 — People with a particular religious affiliation (pdf 247 KB)

Section 5 — People with disabilities (pdf 137 KB)

Section 6 — Children and young people (pdf 100 KB)

Section 7 — Women (pdf 173 KB)

Section 8 — Lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (pdf 225 KB)

Section 9 — People whose gender identity may be an issue (pdf 203 KB)

Section 10 — Self-represented parties (pdf 187 KB)

Section 11 — Your comments (pdf 17 KB)

Index and Tables (pdf 100 KB)

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