The legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfil human rights applies to all arms of government – legislative, executive and judicial – and directly engages the parliament.
Notwithstanding Australia’s international legal obligations, however, the Commonwealth has not established formal domestic mechanisms to ensure comprehensive parliamentary scrutiny of human rights.
On 5 March 2010, therefore, the Centre made a Submission to the Inquiry into the future direction and role of the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee, entitled ‘Parliamentary Committees and the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights’.
The Centre’s submission focuses on Terms of Reference 1(c) and 2, namely:
- what, if any, additional role the Committee should undertake in relation to the human rights obligations applying to the Commonwealth; and
- the role, powers and practices of similar committees in other jurisdictions.
As an overarching proposition, the HRLRC considers that parliamentary committees should play a more significant role in the promotion and protection of human rights in Australia.
This should occur in two primary ways:
- the mandates of all relevant parliamentary committees should require that the committee give proper consideration to the Commonwealth’s human rights obligations, including Australia’s obligations under all international human rights treaties to which it is party; and
- the Parliament should establish a Joint Committee on Human Rights to lead parliamentary engagement with and understanding of human rights issues.
The proposed Joint Committee on Human Rights should be mandated to:
- scrutinise all Bills and subordinate legislation for compatibility with human rights;
- conduct thematic inquiries into human rights issues;
- monitor and report on the implementation of the Concluding Observations, Recommendations and Views of UN treaty bodies and the Recommendations of the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council; and
- monitor and report on government responses to Declarations of Incompatibility (under any Australian Human Rights Act) and other relevant court and tribunal decisions and judgments.
