Landmark reports to the state government from South Australian Law Reform Institute since its start in 2010
South Australian Law Reform Institute director professor John Williams presenting a report in 2015 to state government attorney general Vickie Chapman, with David Bleby QC and institute deputy director Dr David Plater.
The work of the independent South Australian Law Reform Institute led to landmark changes to many of the state’s laws after it was conceived in December 2010.
Based at the University of Adelaide law school, the South Australian Law Reform Institute was formed by an agreement between the attorney-general of South Australia and the university. The institute’s role was to review and research outdated laws, and report back to the attorney-general.
Important contributions made by the South Australian Law Reform Institute included:
• Removing legislative discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, intersex status or gender, including the legal registration of sex and gender, equal recognition of relationships and access to existing laws relating to parentage;
•Defences in criminal law better suited for victims of family violence;
• A relationships register;
• Abortion law reform that has especially benefitted people in regional and remote communities;
• Eliminating outdated homosexual advance defence and the wider defence of provocation to murder;
• An improved legal framework for surrogacy in South Australia;
• Evidence law to deal with new technologies.
* 120 reccommendations in 2021 on abuse of powers of atttorney.
Professor John Williams, founding director of the South Australian Law Reform Institute, joined Adelaide University’s law school in 1997 as a lecturer, having completed his doctorate at the law program, research school of social sciences at the Australian National University.
Before his appointment as professor in law in 2006, he was a reader at the Australian National University (2004-05) and a senior lecturer (1999-2003) and lecturer (1997-98) at the Adelaide law school. He has held visiting positions at the University of Victoria, British Columbia (2007), the University of Cape Town (2001) and was the Menzies Foundation fellow at Kings College London (2002). Williams’s main research interest was public law and in particular Australian constitutional law, the high court of Australia, comparative constitutional law, federalism and legal history.
The institute’s deputy director in 2021 was Dr David Plater, a senior lecturer at Adelaide University law school. His experience included work with the South Australian office of the director of public prosecutions, and in legislation and legal policy in the attorney-general's department. He was also a former senior crown prosecutor at the youth and inner London crown court branch of the crown prosecution service.
