Committee to Defend Black Rights --- "Initial Responses to the First Four RCIADIC Case Reports: Kingsley Dixon, Charlie Michaels, Edward Murphy and John Highfold" [1989] AboriginalLawB 4; (1989) 1(36) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 6

• Initial Responses To The First Four Rciadic Case Reports: Kingsley Dixon, Charlie Michaels, Edward Murphy And John Highfold

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Initial Responses to the First Four RCIADIC Case Reports: Kingsley Dixon, Charlie Michaels, Edward Murphy and John Highfold

by the Committee to Defend Black Rights

Courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald

In the first four Case Reports written by Commissioner Muirhead, there were no recommendations that charges should be laid against any custodial officers. After 200 years of Aboriginal people being booted around, this feels like another defeat for the Aboriginal community. The families of those who died in custody pushed for the Royal Commission in the hope that criminal charges would be laid where individual custodians were responsible for the deaths, and even where responsibility did not rest on the shoulders of one officer, that the findings would show that the death of Aboriginal people in custody is the responsibility of the whole Australian community in creating the circumstances that lead to deaths in custody. They did not want the person who died to be blamed for their own death any longer. Neither of these expectations were met in the first four reports. The gut reaction of the families is that Commissioner Muirhead hasn't "bit the bullet". They feel he has let them down.

These four cases were the first Reports from 108 deaths, and they will be important in assessing community responses for that reason. The Royal Commission has learnt from these four cases, and the structure and the processes of the Commission have improved.

The language of the Reports does not reflect the extremity of the treatment that was meted out to the people involved. The Commission is structured in such a way that the full impact of Aboriginal evidence is lost, because information is filtered through legal representatives. It comes from an oral tradition and then has to be put in a written form. The accounts are in a Black mode which then have to be translated into a White mode which then have to be written and then interpreted back to the community.

The findings have been left open, in the sense that there is room for the families to take out civil action, and for the States, through the Attorney-General, to examine the findings to ascertain whether any charges should be laid.

The day after the release of the reports, the CDBR received calls from all around the country, where Aboriginal people, including family members, had been intimidated, bashed, or picked up on minor charges by police. The feeling was that police now felt they had been given a licence to kill from the highest legal authority. Aboriginal people were saying "The cops are celebrating down here."

The CDBR has not had an opportunity to discuss the reports and findings in a family conference, and therefore cannot comment on future directions. Our submissions to the Finance Department for funding to hold a conference have been rejected. We would like to strongly recommend to readers that they send in letters of support to Gerry Hand's and Senator Tate's offices to fund a national family conference.

Representatives from the four families met in Perth on Thursday, 9 February. They all expressed disgust and anger over the Royal Commission's findings into their relative's death. The families stated that:

"We do not accept the Royal Commission as anything but another glorified Coronial Inquiry.... We consider totally that the buck has been passed and we must succeed in obtaining justice for our black people."