LSB July 2022 LR

FEATURE
Spreading the word:
SA laws in 14 languages
GABRIELLE CANNY, CEO OF THE LEGAL SERVICES COMMISSION
As lawyers, we are sometimes accused
of speaking a strange and baffling
language. And for new migrants, that legal
lingo can seem especially impenetrable.
To help migrants understand essential
elements of the law, a new range of legal
publications are being produced by the
Legal Services Commission with a grant
from the Law Foundation of SA. These
guides can also support the work of legal
practitioners who work with CALD clients.
The Law For You guides will be
available in 14 languages and that is a
first in South Australia; never before have
SA legal publications been delivered in so
many languages.
New migrant communities played a
key role in the creation of the guides and
the selection of their content. The guides
cover major life events and common legal
issues including renting a home, buying a
car, getting married or dealing with a car
accident. They also look at topics such as
raising a family, workers’ rights, dealing
with police and fines, separation and
divorce, family violence, and purchasing
goods or services.
The guides are in languages including
Urdu, Khmer, Spanish, Thai, Arabic,
Burmese, Mandarin Chinese, Dari,
English, Hindi, Nepali, Persian, Swahili
and Vietnamese.
These publications are noteworthy for
their simplicity and lack of legal jargon
– but it was challenging to determine the
level of detail we included in them. As
lawyers, we often want to give the most
comprehensive legal outline to clients.
But in this situation, we needed to strip
things back to the most essential points to
give migrants an accessible overview that
introduces them to key aspects of the law.
The first iteration of the Law For You
publications was produced in 2014 and,
with funding from the Law Foundation.
Rhe guides are now being substantially
revised and translated into a number of
additional languages (including Urdu,
Khmer, Spanish and Thai). The guides
are part of the Commission’s Migrant
Information and Legal Education
program that has reached nearly 50,000
people since it was established in 2004.
It empowers people from new and
emerging communities to achieve greater
self-reliance and social mobility through
improved awareness of their rights and
responsibilities under Australian law.
The Legal Services Commission
provides legal information to all South
Australians - and that must include
those for whom English is not their first
language. In their first years of settlement,
they often have limited opportunities to
The Law For You booklets give new migrants an
overview of key laws and can also support the work
of legal practitioners who work with CALD clients.
understand and learn about Australian
laws. They face language barriers and a
lack of knowledge about where to turn to
get help with legal issues at an early stage.
The Law for You guides respond to those
challenges and can be life changing. They
give new migrants a ‘take home’ package
of information that they can continue to
refer to in their own homes and at times
of legal difficulty.
The new publications are being
produced by our Community Legal
Education unit and will be available
in coming months on the Commission’s
website www.lsc.sa.gov.au and in
hardcopy. B
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July 2022 THE BULLETIN 19