Alternative Law Journal
Media Release
April 2002
Volume 27, No. 2, April 2002
Law
and older people
Australia's population is growing older at a dramatic
rate. By 2051, the number of Australians aged 65 and over will have
increased from the current figure of 2.4 million to more than 6 million.
This issue of the Alternative Law Journal focuses on the recognition,
understanding and protection the law should provide to older Australians.
Sandra McCullough discusses enforcement of the
rights of people in aged care facilities. McCullough argues that despite
an appearance of detailed and tight government regulation, the vulnerability
and lack of market power of older people requires a much more interventionist
approach from government.
Juliet Cummins calls for reform of the law relating
to financial guarantees provided by older people-a special instance
of 'relationship debt'. She identifies the particular vulnerability
of parents to requests from adult children for the parents' home to
be used as security for funds borrowed by the adult child. Cummins
details cases where courts have been reluctant to treat guarantees
provided by parents in commercial contexts as requiring greater vigilance
on the part of credit providers.
Jeff Giddings and Jody Thomas suggest
that Australian legal educators need to sensitise the lawyers of tomorrow
to the communication, ethical and legal issues they may encounter
in working with older clients. Australian law schools have been slow
to learn from North American law schools which offer 'elder law' courses.
Also in this issue:
•Jude McCulloch argues that Australia's response to the
September 11 terrorist attacks in the US marks an intensification
of the militarism of law enforcement and a decline in civil liberties
and human rights; and
• Philip Lynch examines juries as 'communities of resistance'
in the context of the Eureka Stockade and the State Trials and acquittals
that followed.
