North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency

In 1972 the first Aboriginal Legal Aid office in the Northern Territory was established in Darwin, for provision of services to Aboriginal people in the Top End, which led to the establishment of the North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (NAALAS) in 1973. In 1985 the Katherine Regional Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (KRALAS) was established for the Katherine region, and in 1996 the MIWATJ Aboriginal legal Service (MALS) was created to service East Arnhem Land. The first NAAJA Chairperson was Eddie Cubillo. NAAJA received a National Crime Prevention Award in 2012 for its Throughcare program, which works to reduce rates of reoffending in the Northern Territory. On 1 January 2018 NAAJA began operations in Central Australia (Alice Springs). ==Work==

(centre) receiving the 2017 Law Award from the AHRC NAAJA is the largest legal service in the Northern Territory, with more than 170 full-time staff, of whom 43% are Aboriginal, and which includes 63 solicitors . It has offices in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Nhulunbuy and Alice Springs. It delivers criminal and civil law services throughout the Northern Territory. Its key areas of service are: • Criminal Law representation and advice. • Civil Law representation and advice. • Custody Notification Service (CNS) The Custody Notification Service has been in operation since January 2019, after the Commonwealth government had announced three years of funding for NAAJA to administer the service in the NT. ==Notable work==

• Majindi case • Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory ==See also==