"On the 13th of February 2023, the Year 12 Legal Studies class went on an excursion to visit the Supreme Court of Victoria in the city of Melbourne. The experience created great memories and experiences.
Rather early in the day, we all had the pleasure of meeting Judge Tsalamandris, who has almost 30 years of experience acting as a judge and legal practitioner in the civil division of the justice system. We got to ask her about various topics, such as experiences she has lived (both as judge and solicitor), her career path and timeline and what her day of work generally looks like.
Along with being able to ask Judge Tsalamandris questions, the class was able to experience an immersive role-play like scenario in the Supreme Court room. Each of us were stationed to a different role or place in the court room (such as the jury box, bar table, witness stand, etc.) to get a feel for how it would be acting in those roles ourselves. One member of the class took the witness stand and even took an oath of truth which we all had a rather long laugh about. All of such is something that we, more likely than not, won’t get to experience again.
Lastly, we had the opportunity to walk into one of the trials taking place that day, to hear someone give evidence in a murder trial. The process was a little tedious, as she was not an English-speaker and required an interpreter, however this further consolidated our knowledge in relation to what we’ve been learning, regarding how the principles of justice are applied in a real-life situation in the courts.
The overall experience of visiting the Supreme Court was highly enjoyable and beneficial for us all, being able to apply the content we had been learning to real life settings. It was a terrific once-in-a-lifetime experience that I am sure we’ll all carry with us forever."
(Chloe Munn, Year 12)