Young Justice Report
For 10 Wyvern Year 6 boys, the 6th of September was not an ordinary day. They were about to experience a student program called Young Justice. This program is designed for students to learn more about law and how a court works. These 10 boys were Aiden Carter, James McGregor, Jack Earwaker, Yassin Safieh, Andre Gregory, Bililign Robertson, Nicholas Tucker, Will Douglas, James Lukin and David Upcroft. With the amazing assistance of Mr Hazelton we caught the train to St James Station, which is just under Hyde Park, and walked to the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
Once through the security check, we were given the special opportunity to meet a Supreme Court Justice (Judge), Justice Natalie Adams. We saw her incredible Judges’ Chambers, had opportunity to ask some valuable questions as well as hear what a day as a Supreme Court Judge looks like. We then went to a court where the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, talked to us about Human Rights.
Now came a particularly exciting part! We walked down to the Law Society of NSW and started our workshops. These helped us understand applications of the law in different contexts. We started with a workshop on ‘The Environment and Climate Change’. In this workshop we discussed different laws the Government has created to keep us safe from bushfires, floods and cyclones.
Our next workshop was on ‘Law Education’. As a fun fact, did you know that Western Australia has a law to protect potatoes? That law states that you cannot carry more than 50 kilograms of potatoes in your car that you haven’t purchased. If you do not comply with this rule you will be charged a $2,000 fine!
We then had our workshop on ‘Animal Law’. In this workshop we learnt that animals can appear as smart as humans. For example, there was a crow who completed an eight piece puzzle! In this unit we also discussed animal cruelty and animal rights.
Our final workshop was about Human Rights and Children’s Rights. In this workshop we learnt mostly about the ‘Convention of the Rights of the Child.’ This is a list of rights that children should be given. Did you know that America is one of only two countries that haven’t yet signed this list of rights? Our presenters on this topic read us a story about a boy migrating to Australia. We then counted how many out of 42 child’s rights this boy was given. He was only given about 5 out of 42 child’s rights which is appalling.
After this day there were many budding lawyers heading back to Wyvern. On behalf of all the boys who experienced this amazing opportunity, I would like to thank Mr Hazelton for making the trip to the Young Lawyers program possible. It was a ton of fun and we learnt a great deal. I hope that many students next year might get to experience this amazing opportunity just like us.
Aiden Carter- 6L
