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Law students gain insight from Sudanese immigrants

23 July 2008

Monash law students, including Tim McCulloch (centre, blond hair).

Monash Law students have worked with Melbourne's growing population of Sudanese immigrants to produce an extensive report they hope will improve access to services.

Sixteen undergraduate law students produced the report in conjunction with the Springvale-Monash Legal Service. The report formed part of a final-year unit that gave students hands-on experience at the busy legal centre, which helps people who are marginalised or not adequately supported by the legal system.

The report was based on interviews conducted in 2006 and 2007 with more than 30 men, women and children who left Sudan to live in Melbourne's outer south-eastern suburbs. Seventeen government agency staff who work with Sudanese immigrants were also interviewed.

The students found that the immigrants were suffering hardships as a result of their lack of understanding of Victorian family law, driving laws, public transport ticketing, consumer and small business laws, real estate rentals and utility payments.

They found this lack of understanding resulted in the immigrants unwittingly breaking laws and being charged, entering into unfair and financially disastrous small business contracts, and struggling to obtain and keep rental properties.

The report calls for more appreciation of the immigrants' often troubled backgrounds and for greater efforts to be made to educate the immigrants on Australian laws.

Tim McCulloch, a student researcher who worked on the project and has since graduated, said he hoped the report would be an educational resource for workers who had regular contact with Sudanese immigrants.

"I hope it gets read by the frontline people -- by magistrates, police, people in community legal centres and other service providers," Mr McCulloch said.

"And if it does get read by people who are making policy and are in Government -- that would be great too."

Mr McCulloch said the students found the project enjoyable and rewarding.

"It put us in contact with people who we wouldn't otherwise have had anything to do with and it gave us a greater insight into the difficulties the immigrants face," he said.

For more information see Comparative analysis of South Sudanese customary law and Victorian law.

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