Daniel Stepniak
I am a Sessional Tribunal Member (QCAT) and Retired Legal Academic.
I began my working life teaching secondary college legal studies and politics, and researching for the Human Rights Commission. Following admission to legal practice, I focused on legally representing victims of domestic violence and involuntary mental health patients. I moved to prosecute organised crime and child sexual assault. Setting up a media production business I researched and presented a medico-legal subscription television program.
Between 1992 and 2016 I lectured and researched in 3 Australian laws schools. From 1992-1996 at Melbourne University, where I also later completed my PhD, 1996-1998 at Griffith University, and 1998-2016 at the University of Western Australia. In addition I was a visiting member of faculty at the University of Idaho law school in 2000-2001. I taught a number of core law school courses, including torts law, constitutional law and jurisprudence as well as social justice courses which I developed. In 1999 I introduced Australasia’s first law school subject devoted solely to issues of law and religion.
Research of Audio-visual recording and broadcast of court proceedings led me to work with Courts in Australia and comparable overseas jurisdictions, and to my PhD in 2005 and book publication in 2008. My focus was only indirectly on media law and predominantly on the role of Courts’ in ensuring that the public is able to gain an informed understanding and judge whether justice is being done.
Since 2004 I have worked as a Tribunal Member on four Tribunals in two Australian states. Most of my hearings have concerned involuntary and forensic mental health treatment, adult guardianship, administration, child protection, equal opportunity and discrimination, foster care and reviews of assessment of suitability to work with children. While I retired from academic work in 2016, I have continued my Tribunal work and building on my academic sociology-legal interests have embarked on a number of writing projects.
I am an alumnus of the Australian National University, University of New South Wales, and Melbourne University.
I began my working life teaching secondary college legal studies and politics, and researching for the Human Rights Commission. Following admission to legal practice, I focused on legally representing victims of domestic violence and involuntary mental health patients. I moved to prosecute organised crime and child sexual assault. Setting up a media production business I researched and presented a medico-legal subscription television program.
Between 1992 and 2016 I lectured and researched in 3 Australian laws schools. From 1992-1996 at Melbourne University, where I also later completed my PhD, 1996-1998 at Griffith University, and 1998-2016 at the University of Western Australia. In addition I was a visiting member of faculty at the University of Idaho law school in 2000-2001. I taught a number of core law school courses, including torts law, constitutional law and jurisprudence as well as social justice courses which I developed. In 1999 I introduced Australasia’s first law school subject devoted solely to issues of law and religion.
Research of Audio-visual recording and broadcast of court proceedings led me to work with Courts in Australia and comparable overseas jurisdictions, and to my PhD in 2005 and book publication in 2008. My focus was only indirectly on media law and predominantly on the role of Courts’ in ensuring that the public is able to gain an informed understanding and judge whether justice is being done.
Since 2004 I have worked as a Tribunal Member on four Tribunals in two Australian states. Most of my hearings have concerned involuntary and forensic mental health treatment, adult guardianship, administration, child protection, equal opportunity and discrimination, foster care and reviews of assessment of suitability to work with children. While I retired from academic work in 2016, I have continued my Tribunal work and building on my academic sociology-legal interests have embarked on a number of writing projects.
I am an alumnus of the Australian National University, University of New South Wales, and Melbourne University.
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Papers by Daniel Stepniak
While focused on Australian experiences, the chapter draws on the experiences of comparable overseas jurusdictions, where similar trends may be identified.
An earlier version of this book chapter was presented as a paper at ‘The Courts and the Media in the Digital Era’ A symposium of the Centre for Law, Governance and Public Policy and the Centre for New Media and Education, at Bond University, Gold Coast Australia on 12February 2011.
To ask whether TV cameras ought to be admitted into our courts today is no longer the pressing question it was when televising of proceedings seemed to be the only means of permitting the public at large to see and hear for themselves what actually occurred in court proceedings. Merely leaving court doors open and publishing reasons expressed in language likely to challenge the comprehension levels of law students, academics, lawyers and even fellow judges, has traditionally been held to constitute open justice. However, since the 1980s, Australian courts have increasingly recognised that open justice called for more than open doors and published judgments, requiring such publication of courtroom proceedings as would facilitate informed debate on whether what occurred in court reflected public notions of justice administered their name.
This article was presented as a keynote address of the same name at the 23rd Australian Institute of Judicial Administration conference on the theme of 'Technology, Communication, Innovation' held in Wellington, New Zealand , on 5 July 2005.
The paper outlines and analyses overseas experiences with the televising of court proceedings, including the findings of experiments and studies. Based on these experiences and his consideration of relevant legal principles and case law, the author sets out a case for the introduction of television coverage of Australian courts.
In this paper, I briefly outlined the motivation and justification for developing the first Australasian law school course devoted entirely to law and religion issues.