Welcome to the Criminal Lawyers Association of the NT

A BIT ABOUT CLANT

The Criminal Lawyers Association of the Northern Territory (CLANT) has some 150 members in the NT. Through our biennial conference – “the Bali Conference” – we have welcomed many hundreds more criminal lawyers from every jurisdiction in Australia to join us.  One of the key features of this website is CLANT’s archive of papers, presentations and play-readings given at our biennial conferences over the years.

For over 30 years, CLANT has been an effective and powerful voice for the improvement of the criminal justice system in the Northern Territory, representing both defence lawyers and prosecutors, practitioners from the public sector, the private profession and the independent bar.

In a jurisdiction where offending rates, incarceration rates and recidivism rates are higher, and growing faster, than anywhere else in Australia, there are enormous challenges for the criminal justice system.

The Criminal Lawyers Association of the Northern Territory is strongly committed to addressing these problems. Among our Objects and Purposes are:

• to promote and advance the administration of the criminal justice system and development and improvement of criminal law throughout the Northern Territory
•  to actively contribute in public debates in issues relating to the criminal justice system
• to promote and encourage the protection of human rights and compliance with international human rights principles in the Northern Territory
• to promote the professional discourse, development and social interaction amongst the profession

In pursuit of these Objects, CLANT is proud to promote and support a range of campaigns, programs and causes.

THE BALI CONFERENCE

CLANT’s 16th biennial Bali Conference, on the theme “Justice on the Sniff of an Oily Rag”, was held in Bali in June 2017 and attended by over 140 delegates.

The conference papers are being posted here on our website.  Here is a full list of speaker bios and presentation abstracts.

JOIN US!

Membership is open to any person who either contributes to the field of criminal law or criminal jurisprudence, or who practices criminal law, in the Northern Territory of Australia.  Law students are eligible to be Associate Members. If you wish to become a member of CLANT and are eligible for membership, write to the CLANT Treasurer, and pay the biennial membership fee, which is currently $20.  In addition, all persons who are eligible for membership and attend the biennial CLANT conference, thereby become members.

WANT TO GET INVOLVED?

If you are interested in joining the CLANT Committee, please let us know.  We are looking for new Members.