On 2 June 2010, the Attorney-General introduced the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill 2010 and the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2010 in the House of Representatives. The Bills comprise key elements of the Government’s new ‘Human Rights Framework’ and have been referred by the Senate to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report.
The Human Rights Law Resource Centre welcomes these Bills and supports their expeditious passage. On 9 June 2010, the Centre made a submission to the Committee entitled Parliamentary Scrutiny and the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
The Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill 2010 establishes a Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, to be comprised of five members of the House of Representatives and five Senators, with two primary functions:
- first, to ‘examine’ Bills, legislative instruments and existing Acts ‘for compatibility with human rights and to report to both Houses of Parliament on that issue’; and
- second, to ‘inquire into any matter relating to human rights which is referred to it by the Attorney-General, and to report to both Houses of Parliament on that matter’.
The Bill also introduces a requirement that each new Bill introduced to parliament be accompanied by a Statement of Compatibility which includes an ‘assessment of whether the Bill is compatible with human rights’ This requirement also extends to certain legislative instruments
For the purposes of both the Joint Committee and Statements of Compatibility, ‘human rights’ means those human rights and fundamental freedoms contained in the seven core international human rights treaties to which Australia is party.
In introducing the legislation, the Attorney-General stated the purpose of the measures is to ‘improve parliamentary scrutiny of new laws for consistency with Australia’s human rights obligations and to encourage early and ongoing consideration of human rights issues in policy and legislative development’.
The submission considers the features which each of the measures should possess in order to best fulfil this purpose.
