Ian Freckelton AO KC1, Russ Scott2
1Barrister, Professor of Law and Professorial Fellow in Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, 2Forensic Psychiatrist, West Moreton Prison Mental Health Service, Queensland Health
Abstract:
The term ‘vicarious trauma’ refers to a range of cumulative and harmful effects from exposure to the trauma of others and is now recognised as a category of causation in the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. There is a growing awareness of the phenomenon of vicarious traumatisation and the harm that can be caused to legal practitioners and judicial officers from recurrent exposure to trauma. An important prosecution in relation to the failure to provide safe and healthy working conditions in the context of the workplace of a court, the various judgments in High Court’s decision in Kozarov v Victoria (2022) 273 CLR 115 and the Victorian Court of Appeal’s decision in Bersee v Victoria (2022) 70 VR 260 provide reason to reflect in a nuanced way about the content of the duty of care owed to legal practitioners and judicial officers called upon to work with traumatic material that has the foreseeable potential to generate pathology, on its own or in conjunction with unreasonable burdens of work.