Introduction to the Griffith Law Review Commission of Inquiry special issue

Abstract

These introductory remarks outline the themes and articles that comprise this special issue of the Griffith Law Review on ‘Commissions of Inquiry’. The guest editors explain how the work collected in this issue draws on a rich interdisciplinary scholarship and critical analysis to reveal both the prospects as well as limitations of such inquiries. The articles tackle issues ranging from banking and finance capitalism, to child sexual abuse; as well as First Nations’ experiences of imprisonment, deaths in custody and settler colonial violence; and international Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. In late 2020, Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly won Government support for a First Nations truth and justice commission. One of the early observations by Professor Gregory Phillips, a Waanyi-Jaru man, was the need for a genuine truth-telling process alongside national healing and substantive justice. This is a sobering message and made with reference to the limits of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, especially in relation to its failure to deliver on justice. All too often, commissions of inquiry and truth-telling processes have good intentions but are hamstrung by legal and bureaucratic requirements and a lack of government will to follow-through with implementing the fullness of recommendations. By 2021, the failures of government to implement core recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody year have come to be regarded as contributing to the subsequent 474 First Nations deaths in custody. This special issue of Griffith Law Review on Commissions of Inquiry discusses the strengths and weaknesses of inquiries. At best, they enable stories of the marginalised and oppressed to be heard, heal and strengthen survivors and provide a mechanism for justice to be delivered. At worst, they are a decoy for government action and retraumatise survivors. The analyses of the inquiries examined in this collection demonstrate the need to learn from the successes and failures of commissions of inquiry of this kind. The articles convey the substantial scope for inquiries to provide more meaningful outcomes for survivors and public policy. To do this, those responsible for wrongs and crimes need to be held accountable. Yet rarely does this occur in adequate measure. This failure curtails the capacity of inquiries to make amends through reconciliation and