In crikey.com on July 26 Greg Barnes explores briefly the impact the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has had in Canada and finds that it has led to the strengthening of Canadian democracy. He points out that every opinion poll in recent years has shown that the majority of Canadians like the idea of having the Charter to protect them against the excesses of the Executive and that they regard the Charter as being an overwhelmingly positive attribute of their country.

He concludes with the observation that Frank Brennan now has a chance to allow Australians to have the same access to human rights protections as Canadians, but that he needs to stop agonizing over straw men constructed by opponents of human rights.

You can read the complete article on crikey.com

The National Human Rights Consultation is running public hearings next week from 1-3 July (inclusive) at Parliament House in Canberra.

The Consultation website has just been updated allowing people to register. According to the Secretariat, it’s likely that spaces will go quickly, so if you’re interested in attending, please register as soon as you can.

 The basic outline of the hearings will be as follows:

Day 1 (1 July): How are human rights presently protected in Australia? (Here the Committee will hear from marginalised groups, and those speaking on ‘hot button’ issues emerging from the Consultation eg. same-sex marriage, religious discrimination etc)

Day 2 (2 July): What difference would a Charter make? (A range of high profile international and domestic speakers with perspectives for against or for a charter)

Day 3 (3 July): How else could we better protect human rights and promote responsibilities in Australia? (A range of high profile domestic speakers to explore options for protecting and promoting human rights other than a charter).

This recent submission to the Brennan consultations by lawyer Kirk Mckenzie provides some useful historical perspective the question of human rights protection. Read the submission in full here.

Much has been written about the evils that will be visited on Australia by “unelected judges” under a national charter of human rights.  Not only is this wrong, it misses the point according to Prof.George Williams in an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald on May 2, 2009.

He goes on to point out that under the proposed parliamentary charter model, judges would only have a minor role. The real focus would be on improving how the Federal Parliament operates. The idea is to prevent human rights problems occurring so that there is no need to go to court. More:

A new resource using real life stories to teach English and human rights awareness has been launched in Canberra today by Federal Attorney-General, the Hon Robert McClelland.

President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Cathy Branson QC, said It’s Your Right! has been developed by the Commission in partnership with Adult Multicultural Education Services (AMES) Victoria as a teaching resource about human rights and responsibilities in Australia for adult learners.

“It’s Your Right! is a resource tailored to the needs of people who are newly arrived in Australia and who are learning English as a second language (ESL).

“Newcomers to Australia often experience unfairness or discrimination in their daily lives, either at work or in seeking accommodation, for example, but are not aware of where they can go for help.

“It’s Your Right! teaches English and at the same time raises awareness of human rights and equal opportunity laws in Australia that protect people against unfair treatment and discrimination,” Ms Branson said.  For full details visit the AHRC web-site here

In his launch speech the Attorney-General also advised that he was currently working with the Education Minister to ensure that human rights education is promoted in Australia. And to that end, ensure it forms part of the civics and citizenship curriculum for students of all age groups in each State and Territory.”

From 19 May to 26 June 2009, the Australian Government is running an online community consultation on human rights and responsibilities on Open Forum.

Introducing the online consultation the Chair of the National Human Rights Consultation Committee, Fr Frank Brennan, urged all people in Australia to consider sharing their views on three key consultation questions and whether Australia should have a statutory bill or charter of rights.

Don’t dismiss this as nothing more than a chance to have a whinge in a chat room. By leaving a comment on this forum, you are communicating directly with the Committee and your views will be considered in their final report to the Australian Government.

The National Human Rights Online Consultation is open for public commentary until 5:00pm, Friday, 26 June 2009.

HRAAC Chair, Susan Ryan, wrote to Fr Frank Brennan asking for clarification of an apparent last-minute broadening of his committees terms of reference, to consider also the option of a constitutional bill of rights for Australia.

Fr Brennan replied by confirming that the committee’s terms of reference make it clear that the Australian Government won’t be considering a constitutional option and that his committee will not consider proposing  one.

Nevertheless, he went on to state that this doesn’t mean that any submisissions to the committee shouldn’t discuss this option, nor that the committee wouldn’t refer to such an opinion in it’s final report. Read the full exchange:

The Human Rights Law Resource Centre HRLRC continues to collect real life case studies which illustrate how human rights laws can be used to encourage common-sense policies and decisions that promote human dignity and addresses disadvantage.

The case studies demonstrate the ways in which legislation such as the Victorian Charter, the ACT Human Rights Act 2004 and the UK Human Rights Act 1998 are being used in areas such as disability, aged care, education, mental health and homelessness.

There are now more than 25 case studies are available on the HRLRC web-site.

Concerns that a national Human Rights Act would fall foul of the Constitution can be confidently put aside, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission Cathy Branson QC said today.

Ms Branson said constitutional validity of a national Human Rights Act was questioned earlier this year by former High Court Judge Michael McHugh who expressed doubts that elements of the proposed model were constitutionally valid.

“To clear the air, the Australian Human Rights Commission recently held a roundtable, bringing together some of Australia’s leading constitutional and human rights lawyers, including Mr McHugh and former Chief Justice Sir Anthony Mason, to discuss the constitutional validity of a Human Rights Act,” Ms Branson said.

“The roundtable reached unanimous agreement on a number of important issues, most importantly, that a Human Rights Act can be drafted in a way that is constitutionally valid.”

Read the the full roundtable report on the AHRC web-site

Anyone still on the fence about the need for additional human rights protection in Australia should pick up a copy of the very timely The Statute of Liberty - How Australians can take back their rights by leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC.

You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand this clear and compellingly argued book. Robertson provides both historical and geographic context to the debate. He gives readers an insider’s perspective of the beneficial impact of recent human rights legislation elsewhere in the world.

Recommended reading, also for the way Geoffrey Robertson forensically demolishes the arguments of leading critics and for his own innovative draft Statute of Liberty with its own, distinctly Australian, character. Published by Randon House Australia.

A more extensive review by Brisbane barrister Stephen Keim SC can be found in The Australian newspaper.

You can also hear Geoffrey Robertson give a potted history of the development of human rights and his call for Australia to follow just about every other developed democratic nation and enact its own Bill of Rights. Far from being a banquet for greedy lawyers to feast on, Robertson says, such a bill protects the most vulnerable members of society. ABC Radio National, April 1, 2009

In this essay Professor Spencer Zifcak and Alison King, argue that it is now imperative that Australia legislates comprehensively to protect human rights.

The authors point out that Australia’s legal protections against human rights violations are patchy and incomplete. The Australian Constitution says almost nothing about human rights, anti-discrimination laws provide only a scant and limited shield, and the common law can be overridden at any time by an ordinary Act of Parliament. The essay describes many areas in which human rights have recently been infringed.

The essay is available for download from the website of The Australian Collaboration.

Frank Brennan SJ AO, professor of law at the Australian Catholic University and Chair of the National Human Rights Consultation recently launched the new book : Bills of Rights in Australia: History Politics and Law, by Andrew Byrnes, Hilary Charlesworth and Gabrielle McKinnon.

He stated that the authors provided a great public service in assisting the reader to think more logically about human rights and their justifiable limits in society. Read his full launch speech here.