The High Court will tomorrow hear a landmark legal challenge to the Australian Government’s power to detain people indefinitely in immigration detention. The Human Rights Law Centre and UNSW’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law will appear at the hearing as amici curiae – friends of the court – to argue that detention is unlawful for any person the Government is unlikely to remove in the foreseeable future.  

Next week on 7 November 2023, being intoxicated in public will finally be decriminalised. This is an historic and long overdue reform, with laws repealing the offence coming into effect next week.

ACT Government has passed long awaited legislation to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years old by 2025. While the move to raise the age to 14 in the ACT is cause for some celebration, delaying this reform to 14 until 2025 and including exceptions for some 12 and 13 year old children is both extremely disappointing and immensely frustrating.

The Human Rights Law Centre has called on the Australian Government to strengthen the powers of Australia’s principal corporate human rights watchdog, the Australian National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct.

The Human Rights Law Centre applauds the ACT Government for introducing legislation to enshrine the ‘right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment’ into the Human Rights Act 2004. If passed, the Barr Government will be the first government in Australia to recognise the standalone right to a healthy environment in law.

The legal profession does not currently reflect the community that it serves, and as a human rights organisation we have a responsibility to help address this. Working with counsel who have a diversity of perspectives, experiences and backgrounds is good for our clients and good for the profession. Our Equity andf Diversity policy was developed in consultation with a range of stakeholders across the profession.

The Allan Government’s new bail laws will not meet minimum human rights standards and will mean people, including children and young people, are still needlessly funnelled into prisons, according to the Human Rights Law Centre. 

The Human Rights Law Centre have questioned the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) over its decision not to deploy mobile polling booths in hospitals and for insufficient allocation of resources to mobile polling teams on Aboriginal homelands.

The Human Rights Law Centre today condemned the NSW Police Minister and NSW Police for refusing to allow a planned protest to go ahead by members of the Palestinian community and their supporters. It further condemned the NSW Premier, Chris Minns, for his alarming comments indicating Palestinians would not be permitted to take to the streets again in the future. 

Joint evidence to the inquiry from Transparency International Australia, Griffith University’s Centre for Governance and Public Policy and the Human Rights Law Centre calls for a single Act to protect whistleblowers across all types of private sector entities – revealing that partnerships like the major accounting firms are not adequately covered by any existing laws, for the public or private sectors.

The Allan Government’s pause on changes to youth bail laws will cause preventable harm to Victoria’s children and young people, and keep children and young people needlessly locked up behind bars while waiting for a trial, says the Human Rights Law Centre.

The High Court will next month hear a landmark legal challenge to the Australian government’s power to hold people in immigration detention indefinitely.