Australia is now the only major constitutional democracy in the world without some form of written bill of rights, or comprehensive rights charter. Yet, in recent years, two Australian jurisdictions (the ACT and Victoria) have moved to adopt state-level rights charters (the ACT Human Rights Act 2004 and Victorian Charter of Rights and responsibilities 2008). This course will examine these two state bills of rights, and their likely future interpretation in light of both existing case-law and comparative experience in jurisdictions such as the US, Canada, South Africa and the UK. The course will also explore the broader theoretic stakes behind these interpretive questions, ongoing debates about the potential amendment of these charters (so as, for example, to include more extensive socioeconomic rights protections) and the adoption of a rights charter at a national level.
Main topics
- Human rights - their origin, meaning and content, and competing models of the protection of human dignity and relationships;
- International obligations relating to the implementation of human rights at the national level and the different categories of rights (civil and political, economic, social and cultural, and third generation rights;
- The implementation and protection of human rights without a bill of rights;
- Models of bills of rights - judicially enforceable and other models, constitutionally entrenched and statutory bills of rights;
- The status of economic, social and cultural rights, the desirability and practicability of including them in constitutional or statutory charters of rights, and means of implementing and enforcing such rights;
- Debates about Bills of Rights in Australia and the development of modern Australian charters of rights;
- The ACT Human Rights Act 2004-and the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities: origins, structure, content and impact;
- The prospects for a federal Charter of Rights and future developments at the State and Territory level.
