Marita Ham
Marita's main area of practice is Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal matters and VCAT reviews of those decisions, and related Sentencing Act applications. She is also briefed in Children's Court (both family and criminal division), intervention orders, summary crime, family law (children's matters), guardianship and administration, and Mental Health Tribunal matters.
Prior to coming to the Bar, Marita was Australia Post's National Compliance Manager and advised business units on Trade Practices, privacy, intellectual property and contractual matters. Prior to that she was in the legal and policy branch at the Office of Fair Trading (now Consumer Affairs) at the Department of Justice, where she was responsible for the drafting and passage of two acts through Parliament (the Fair Trading Act and Motor Car Traders Amendment Act), and prosecuted crimes under the Fair Trading Act. She was also the Victorian representative at the federal Ministerial Council for Financial Institutions (MinFIN) and was on the National Working Party for non-financial banking institutions.
Marita completed her Articles with Maddock Lonie and Chisholm (now Maddox), after which she was a solicitor in Byron Bay for two years in a general practice working mainly in family law and crime.
Marita has volunteered in various community legal centres and with various NGOs on human rights issues over the years. She has a special interest in human trafficking, and has studied International Human Rights Law at Monash University. Since January 2019 she has been a Director of Hagar Australia, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to ending the cycle of trafficking, slavery and abuse in Cambodia, Vietnam and Afghanistan. Since mid 2019 she has been Hagar Australia's Company Secretary.
In 2017, Marita wrote and presented a paper on 'Forced Marriage in Victoria', at the World Congress on Family Law and Children's Rights in Dublin, Ireland. In December 2020, she represented Hagar at the National Roundtable Conference on Human Trafficking and Slavery in Canberra.
Recent cases:
PTR v Victims of Crime Assistance (Costs) (Review and Regulation) [2019] VCAT 1644 - (21 October 2019) - Successfully opposed VOCAT's application to pay costs on a lesser scale than the County Court Scale, after VOCAT was unsuccessful at VCAT in the substantive case (see below).
PTR v Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal [2019] VCAT 1204 (8 August 2019) - Acted for a school boy victim of grooming, overturning VOCAT's decision to refuse him lost earnings and tutoring expenses.
HUM v Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal (Review and Regulation) [2019] VCAT 443 (29 March 2019) - Overturned VOCAT's decision to refuse a claim from a woman who experienced sexual offending as a child from a police officer.
QMX v Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal (Review and Regulation) [2018] VCAT 614 (20 April 2018) - Acted for a mother and children who, at VOCAT, were refused security expenses, a holiday and other items to assist recovery, and were not awarded the maxium Special Financial Assistance, and overturned VOCAT's decision.
NFL v Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal (Review and Regulation) [2023] VCAT 877 - Successfully overturned a VOCAT decision increasing the amount of special financial assistance to a victim of rape and physical abuse in a long term marriage, and obtaining assist recovery items.
ZHC v Victims of Crime Assistance (Review and Regulation) 2022 VCAT 333 (30 March 2022) - Overturned a VOCAT decision which struck out a claim under section 52 for failing to report the act of violence to police within a reasonable time.