Victoria's former Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People will commence work as a Professor of Practice in Monash University's Law Faculty.
Meena Singh, who stood down from the Commissioner role last year in the wake of the Victorian Government's controversial introduction of harsh prison sentences for children as young as 14, will commence at Monash this week, where she previously completed her law degree.
Bringing more than 20 years of experience in legal practice, advocacy and organisational leadership, Ms Singh, a Yorta Yorta and Indian woman, has dedicated her career to advancing human rights and social justice.
"Monash has always been part of my family life, so I'm proud to be back and looking forward to working with bright, young minds ready to learn," Ms Singh said, whose mother, Aunty Diane Singh, studied and later worked at Monash, serving as Elder-In-Residence at the William Cooper Institute.
"After years spent examining what is failing within systems, I'm looking forward to an environment focused on learning and possibility, bringing students on this journey with me."
In a statement on Monday, Ms Singh said stories handed down through First Nations and migrant communities reinforced law, values and "our relationships with country and with each other".
"Our role in advocating for our clients is to convey them as a real-life person. Explain the circumstances that got them here and suggest the most appropriate response, telling their story," she said.
"Without somebody using storytelling and someone listening, the law can reflect a single worldview. Better outcomes require lawyers and decision-makers to engage with a wider range of experiences and stories."
Before her time as Commissioner, where she championed the causes of some of Victoria's most vulnerable children and appeared before the landmark Yoorrook Justice Commission inquiry, Ms Singh led programs at Victoria Legal Aid, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and the Human Rights Law Centre.
Despite nearly four years in the role, the Victorian Government did not publicly acknowledge her resignation late last year, despite Ms Singh also taking on the position of acting Commissioner for Children and Young People. The government only replaced her — with Dharug man Dallas Widdicombe — in May.
"[I was] privileged to witness the amazing capacity of Aboriginal children and young people and hear the things that are important to them," she said last year, but lamented the resilience they show is often required because of "systems borne out of racism and violence".
Dean of the Faculty of Law at Monash, Professor Steven Vaughan, welcomed Ms Singh to the Faculty, noting she has spent her career in the rooms "where the law's promises get tested against people's actual lives".
"When Meena gave the keynote at our Gala Ball last year, she spoke about fifty years of clinical legal education and the roughly 100,000 Victorians our clinics have assisted," Professor Vaughan said.
"What has stayed with me is how she read that number. She treated it as 100,000 separate stories, each told by someone who needed a person on the other side of the desk to actually listen to them. That is the standard she sets, and it is the standard we want our graduates to hold themselves to."
It's a genuine privilege to have that perspective available to students week on week, he argued.
"Our students will learn a great deal of law from Meena. I suspect what they will carry with them is her conviction that justice has to be made real for particular people in particular circumstances, or it isn't yet justice," Professor Vaughan said.
