The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. When I first heard about Australia’s “bush courts,” I knew they were something I wanted to report on. Makeshift courtrooms, fly-in legal services, and Australians processed through that system who neither understood English nor how the courts worked. But as any journalist working in this country knows, stories about Indigenous Australia can be difficult: Communities can be extremely remote, may not speak English and can be distrustful of outsiders — with good reason. From Darwin, we took the five-hour drive through the rocky Outback, where we would spend four days observing the courts, which processed dozens of cases a day.

Source: New York Times December 11, 2020 04:59 UTC