National Continuing Legal Education for Coercive Control and Family Safety Competence

On behalf of the Reference Group at Australian Catholic University, our submission represents a collective response to the questions posed by the Public Consultation on Continuing Professional Development for Legal Practitioners on Coercive Control across disciplines with expertise in the field.

SUBMISSION SUMMARY
1. Coercive control is one aspect of a larger problem linked to intimate partner and family violence. It is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women and children. As it is a multifaceted course of conduct, it requires multidisciplinary research and intervention.

2. The role that laws and lawyers play in coercive control is significant. The coercive power of law and the courts can easily facilitate and augment systemic forms of coercive control.

3. Coercive control is a phenomenon that transcends any one area of legal practice. It is not the detail of the substantive law that is the issue. The complexity of the topic would require more than a single hour of study. It requires, we suggest, at least 3 hours of instruction just to cover the essential aspects of the subject.

4. There are three major issues arising:
a. The ways in which law in discrete areas of practice is used to engage or suppress coercive control.
b. Managing the professional ethics and conflict duties arising in practice.
c. Developing practices that minimise risk of harm.