The Library Bulletin

The National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book is a web-based, open access resource designed for easy readability and navigation by a range of users. For flexibility, any bench book page can be converted to a PDF and emailed or printed. The purpose of this bench book is to provide a central resource for judicial officers considering legal issues relevant to domestic and family violence related cases that will contribute to harmonising the treatment of these cases across jurisdictions along broad principles and may assist them with decision-making and judgment writing. There are a number of navigation tools: Left-hand menu enabling access to the bench book contents, case database, victim experiences and acknowledgements File tabs containing a variety of resources related to a particular issue Breadcrumb trail revealing the user’s path from the home page to the current page Embedded links connecting to external sources and related material within the bench book Linked keywords connecting related material within the bench book.

As well as serving as a resource in the judicial decision-making process, this bench book is a publicly available resource that is intended to benefit other legal professionals and service providers who are working with victims and perpetrators of domestic and family violence.