Your legal rights
Activist Rights Manual
A separate website, produced by the Redfern Legal Centre with assistance from Copwatch volunteers, provides information to activists on their rights. It has an emphasis on the issues that can arise at street protests. See the Activists Rights Manual site for more information.
We also suggest the following
Legal Aid NSW
Legal Aid NSW is for those wanting general legal information, or representation at court. There is a "means test" and a "merits test" to qualify for legal aid. The "means test" refers to capital and income, so you may be too rich to qualify. The "merits test" means that your matter may be too trivial for Legal Aid to pay a lawyer to represent you in court.
Legal Aid sometimes faces the attitude that as their lawyers are not paid much compared to the private sector, then they mustn't be much good. Au contraire. Being represented by a criminal lawyer who is use to working in the same courts day-in, day-out, is better than a high-priced commercial lawyer that has little criminal experience but just happens to be a friend of your father's.
Law Access
Law Access has a general website with lots of legal information. For a general chat on legal matters, you can ring one of the legal information officers at Law Access on 1300 888 529 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays).
Community Law Centres
Our favourite community law centres are Redfern Legal Centre and the Inner City Legal Centre. If you do not live in the inner city, or you belong to a special group (Aboriginal, young, etc) you may wish to check out a list of Community Legal Centres in NSW.
Thoroughly confused?
Ring Law Access on 1300 888 529.
More reading
Armstrong Legal (a private firm with which we have no connection) has a series of information sheets on a variety of criminal matters).
