Improving Access to Justice for Women Who Kill Their Abusers: Practitioner Insights and Experiences

Over the past decade, Australia has made significant reforms aimed at improving legal understandings of intimate partner violence, women’s use of force and their access to self-defence. While some courts have recognised the cumulative effects of coercive control and social entrapment on women’s responses, significant problems remain that deny many women access to justice. This article presents findings from a Victorian pilot study involving interviews with lawyers and experts who work with victim-survivors in these cases. Despite the existence of legislative provisions encouraging decision-makers to utilise the family violence evidence provisions and draw on a broader range of experts with family violence expertise, results revealed that a number of interviewees had limited knowledge of these provisions, and psych- based experts are still being used in the majority of cases. Surprisingly, while psych-based expertise was seen as helpful, interviewees were aware of the limits of this expertise with some seeing this as due to the limited authority afforded family violence experts/expertise by the courts. We conclude with recommendations for building the workforce and capacity of experts to work in this area and targeted training to skill up practitioners to more effectively utilise family violence experts in conjunction with the family violence evidence provisions throughout the whole court process.