Rachana Rajan joined the Human Rights Law Centre in November 2024 as Associate Legal Director in the First Nations Justice team.
Rachana has a strong background in community law, having worked and volunteered in the sector since 2007. In her most recent roles at the Prisoners’ Legal Service Queensland and the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, she provided legal advice, representation and law reform advocacy for First Nations people and people in prison on civil law issues including overpolicing, police misconduct, deaths in custody, prison conditions and parole decisions.
Given the connections between systemic racism, unmet needs and mass incarceration of First Nations people, Rachana supports multidisciplinary approaches to tackling injustices in the criminal legal system. She is particularly interested in ensuring consideration of the determinants of health. A focus of her legal work has been strengthening health-justice collaboration and challenging decision-makers to choose community-led, health-based solutions instead of criminalisation.
Rachana brings strategic knowledge of government processes in Queensland. Immediately prior to joining the Human Rights Law Centre, she managed complex policy development and legislative change projects at Queensland Health.
She is passionate about young people having meaningful opportunities and being kept out of prison. Outside of work she volunteers with Digi Youth Arts and Brisbane Youth Service.
Rachana has undergraduate degrees in law and science from Monash University and a Master of Public Health from James Cook University. In addition to that education, as a non-Indigenous woman without lived experience of criminalisation she deeply appreciates the knowledge First Nations clients and communities have shared with her, and commits to working in solidarity.