 | |
| Location |
|
|---|---|
| Services | Social assistance |
Executive Director | Hugh de Kretser |
| Website | hrlc.org.au |
The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) is an Australian human rights group, with locations in South Melbourne and Sydney.
| | |
| Location |
|
|---|---|
| Services | Social assistance |
Executive Director | Hugh de Kretser |
| Website | hrlc.org.au |
The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) is an Australian human rights group, with locations in South Melbourne and Sydney.
In April 2019, the HRLC compiled data showing that Indigenous Australian women were arrested for public drunkenness at 10 times the rate of the general population. This was part of an effort to convince a coroner to rule systemic racism played a role in the death of Tanya Day, an Aboriginal woman who died in police custody. [1]
In May 2019 the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released figures showing that Indigenous minors were 17 times more likely to be in prison than non-Indigenous youth. Indigenous youth made up 48% of those aged 10–17 in prison, but were only 5% of the general population aged 10–17. The HRLC joined Change the Record, an Aboriginal-led coalition of legal and human rights organisations calling for law reform. Ruth Barson was quoted as saying that it was "common sense" that children should be in school and playgrounds, not prisons. [2]
In May 2019, the HRLC joined 59 other organisations lobbying the New South Wales Government to remove abortion as a criminal offence in the state. [3]
In April 2019 the HRLC (along with the Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic and Castan Centre for Human Rights Law) was granted permission to intervene in High Court of Australia cases (Clubb v Preston and Preston v Avery [4] ) where two anti-abortion activists were challenging "safe zone" laws in Victoria and Tasmania which prevented harassment and protesting too close to medical facilities which provide abortions. The HRLC intervened on the side of the Victorian and Tasmanian state governments, and the High Court eventually ruled in their favour. [5] [6]
In May 2019, following the February 18 passage of "medevac" amendments to the Migration Act 1958 , the HRLC joined a coalition to organisations including Amnesty International and the Refugee Council of Australia to help sick refugees detained in offshore detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru gain access to medical transport to mainland Australia. [7]
In October 2017, the HRLC criticised Canstruct International for taking a $591 million Australian Government contract to run the Nauru Regional Processing Centre. HRLC said Canstruct was taking up a "poisoned chalice" and that it would be "complicit" in an "internationally abusive system", that there was no ethical way for it to be involved. [8] Keren Adams from the HRLC said “It is particularly appalling that the contract has been awarded to an engineering company with zero experience dealing with vulnerable people [...] Canstruct is an engineering company with a background building bridges. In accepting this contract, it will be taking the job of running a cruel, open-air prison detaining people, including many children, who are deeply traumatised.” [9]
In January 2019, the HRLC criticised the Coalition Government of Scott Morrison for their plans to pass laws expanding powers of the Home Affairs Department (at the time headed by Peter Dutton) to strip Australians of their citizenship. The HRLC argued that expanding this power would risk making people stateless for minor crimes. Emily Howie warned "If Parliament passes this bill, we could see people banished to countries they’ve never even visited for crimes that were not even serious enough for a court to impose a prison sentence," [10]
In August 2017 the HRLC launched a High Court challenge (Ors; Australian Marriage Equality Ltd & Anor v Minister for Finance & Anor [2017] HCA 40 (M105/M106 of 2017)) against the Australian Federal Government in regards to the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. The action was launched behalf of Australian Marriage Equality, and Senator Janet Rice. Anna Brown, then-Director of Legal Advocacy at the HRLC, said that the postal survey was designed to frustrate and delay marriage equality. Though the HRLC's legal argument focused on whether the Minister actually had the power the spend tens of millions of dollars on the nation-wide survey. The High Court eventually ruled against the HRLC and other plaintiffs, and the survey went ahead. Afterwards, HRLC noted reports showing that the debate surrounding the survey had a negative effect on LGBTI Australians. [11]
In September 2014, the HRLC spoke in support of the Victorian Government allowing men who were convicted of having gay sex to apply to have their convictions erased. Anna Brown said this would help the men move past the shame of having a criminal record for something that shouldn't have been a crime in the first place. [12]
In August 2007, the HRLC ran a High Court challenge, Roach v Electoral Commissioner . The High Court eventually ruled that a federal law preventing most prisoners from voting was unconstitutional. [13]
In April 2019 the HRLC joined the independent Inspector for Custodial Services in condemning the practice in Western Australian prisons of routinely strip-searching prisons, especially minors, without any prior suspicion of wrongdoing. Ruth Barson described the practice as "invasive, traumatic and entirely unnecessary" adding that it "strips people of dignity". [14]
The HRLC has also made statements about Indigenous youth prisoners.
In May 2019 Hugh de Kretser was Executive Director of HRLC. [15]
Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Micronesia, part of Oceania in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba of Kiribati, about 300 km (190 mi) to the east. It lies northwest of Tuvalu, 1,300 km (810 mi) northeast of Solomon Islands, east-northeast of Papua New Guinea, southeast of the Federated States of Micronesia and south of the Marshall Islands. With an area of only 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi), Nauru is the third-smallest country in the world behind Vatican City and Monaco, making it the smallest republic and island nation. Its population of about 10,800 is the world's second-smallest after Vatican City. Settled by people from Micronesia circa 1000 BCE, Nauru was annexed and claimed as a colony by the German Empire in the late 19th century. After World War I, Nauru became a League of Nations mandate administered by Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. During World War II, Nauru was occupied by Japanese troops, and was bypassed by the Allied advance across the Pacific. After the war ended, the country entered into United Nations trusteeship. Nauru gained its independence in 1968.
The Pacific Solution is the name given to the government of Australia's policy of transporting asylum seekers to detention centres on island nations in the Pacific Ocean, rather than allowing them to land on the Australian mainland. Initially implemented from 2001 to 2007, it had bipartisan support from the Coalition and Labor opposition at the time. The Pacific Solution consisted of three central strategies:
Australian immigration detention facilities comprise a number of different facilities throughout Australia, including the Australian territory of Christmas Island. Such facilities also exist in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, namely the Nauru Regional Processing Centre and the Manus Regional Processing Centre.
The Nauru Regional Processing Centre is an offshore Australian immigration detention facility in use from 2001 to 2008, from 2012 to 2019, and from September 2021. It is located on the South Pacific island nation of Nauru and run by the Government of Nauru. The use of immigration detention facilities is part of a policy of mandatory detention in Australia.
Human rights in Australia have largely been developed by the democratically-elected Australian Parliament through laws in specific contexts and safeguarded by such institutions as the independent judiciary and the High Court, which implement common law, the Australian Constitution, and various other laws of Australia and its states and territories. Australia also has an independent statutory human rights body, the Australian Human Rights Commission, which investigates and conciliates complaints, and more generally promotes human rights through education, discussion and reporting.
Human rights in Brazil include the right to life and freedom of speech; and condemnation of slavery and torture. The nation ratified the American Convention on Human Rights. The 2017 Freedom in the World report by Freedom House gives Brazil a score of "2" for both political rights and civil liberties; "1" represents the most free, and "7", the least.
Immigration detention is the policy of holding individuals suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorized arrival, as well as those subject to deportation and removal until a decision is made by immigration authorities to grant a visa and release them into the community, or to repatriate them to their country of departure. Mandatory detention refers to the practice of compulsorily detaining or imprisoning people seeking political asylum, or who are considered to be illegal immigrants or unauthorized arrivals into a country. Some countries have set a maximum period of detention, while others permit indefinite detention.
Crime in Australia is managed by various law enforcement bodies, the federal and state-based criminal justice systems and state-based correctional services.
Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism or rebellion, to control illegal immigration, or to otherwise protect the ruling regime.
George Newhouse is an Australian human rights lawyer and a former local councillor. He is the principal solicitor of the National Justice Project, a human rights and social justice legal service, and currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Macquarie University. and at the University of Technology Sydney.
The Australian government has a policy and practice of detaining in immigration detention facilities non-citizens not holding a valid visa, suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorised arrival, and those subject to deportation and removal in immigration detention until a decision is made by the immigration authorities to grant a visa and release them into the community, or to repatriate them to their country of origin/passport. Persons in immigration detention may at any time opt to voluntarily leave Australia for their country of origin, or they may be deported or given a bridging or temporary visa. In 1992, Australia adopted a mandatory detention policy obliging the government to detain all persons entering or being in the country without a valid visa, while their claim to remain in Australia is processed and security and health checks undertaken. Also, at the same time, the law was changed to permit indefinite detention, from the previous limit of 273 days. The policy was instituted by the Keating government in 1992, and has been varied by the subsequent Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison and Albanese Governments. The policy is regarded as controversial and has been criticised by a number of organisations. The High Court of Australia has confirmed, by majority, the constitutionality of indefinite mandatory detention of non-citizens.
Indigenous Australians are both convicted of crimes and imprisoned at a disproportionately higher rate in Australia, as well as being over-represented as victims of crime. As of September 2019, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners represented 28% of the total adult prisoner population, while accounting for 2% of the general adult population. Various explanations have been given for this over-representation, both historical and more recent. Federal and state governments and Indigenous groups have responded with various analyses, programs and measures.
Nauruan law, since Nauru's independence from Australia in 1968, is derived primarily from English and Australian common law, though it also integrates indigenous customary law to a limited extent. Nauruan common law is founded mainly on statute law enacted by the Parliament of Nauru, and on precedents set by judicial interpretations of statutes, customs and prior precedents.
Punishment in Australia arises when an individual has been accused or convicted of breaking the law through the Australian criminal justice system. Australia uses prisons, as well as community corrections. When awaiting trial, prisoners may be kept in specialised remand centres or within other prisons.
The issue of human rights in Tanzania, a nation with a 2012 population of 44,928,923, is complex. In its 2013 Freedom in the World report, Freedom House declared the country "Partly Free".
Asylum in Australia has been granted to many refugees since 1945, when half a million Europeans displaced by World War II were given asylum. Since then, there have been periodic waves of asylum seekers from South East Asia and the Middle East, with government policy and public opinion changing over the years.
The Manus Regional Processing Centre, or Manus Island Regional Processing Centre (MIRCP), was one of a number of offshore Australian immigration detention facilities. The centre was located on the PNG Navy Base Lombrum on Los Negros Island in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea.
The Migration Act 1958(Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that governs immigration to Australia. It set up Australia’s universal visa system (or entry permits). Its long title is "An Act relating to the entry into, and presence in, Australia of aliens, and the departure or deportation from Australia of aliens and certain other persons."
The National Justice Project (NJP) is a not for profit legal service established to promote human rights, social justice and to fight against disadvantage and discrimination in Australia through strategic legal action, effective advocacy and communication.
Canstruct is a facilities management, construction, and service provision company based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, with operations in the Pacific region.
