Australia's biggest Indigenous legal service has declared it's back on track to provide strong representation for its vulnerable clients. It comes after the NT's North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency has been rocked by an unfair dismissal case taken by its former chief executive, and an exodus of lawyers.
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00:00 Last month, Naja announced it would have to stop taking on new cases in Alice Springs
00:07 after a mass exit of its lawyers. It's now on a recruitment drive, but also having to
00:13 extend the case ban.
00:15 We would look to be in a position by the end of January to ensure that we have the ability
00:19 to open up our caseloads again for lawyers.
00:22 It comes with dire consequences.
00:24 There are a lot of people that are not represented properly in court and self-representation
00:29 is something that people are unfortunately being dragged to.
00:32 Naja has been in turmoil since its board stood down then-CEO Priscilla Atkins last year.
00:39 In the federal court in October, she and the board chair Colleen Roses made accusations
00:45 against each other of misusing Naja's resources, which both denied.
00:50 The case will conclude next year.
00:52 The NT police separately investigated allegations of unauthorised payments.
00:57 The police have completed their investigations and they find no adverse findings.
01:01 Priscilla Atkins didn't respond to the ABC's request for comment. Naja thinks it can now
01:07 move on.
01:08 The other thing that will have to happen is the development of really robust governance
01:12 structures to ensure that not only are we transparent, but we are accountable.
01:17 The issues that we've seen with the board and the CEO of Naja, those issues need to
01:21 be sorted out.
01:22 A veteran Darwin SC thinks much bigger changes are needed.
01:27 I've seen enough to sadly convince me that this organisation has got to such a state
01:34 of disrepair that it needs to be changed in a transformational way completely.
01:41 However, Naja is rejecting the criticism.
01:44 We're dealing with thousands and thousands of matters a year, so we really do need a
01:49 lot of people to support us rather than see us as being a problem.
01:54 Naja says lawyer shortages mean many more people going to jail and more waiting on remand
02:01 in the jurisdiction which already has Australia's highest indigenous incarceration rates.
02:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]