Critically analyse the Australian Government’s proposed reforms for protecting and promoting human rights for the more vulnerable groups in Australia.
A bill of rights alone will not protect the rights of the people. But nor will a majoritarian democracy. Contemporary democracy stands for more than just the primitive notion of according full power to the popular majorities of Parliament by the vote. It requires the recognition of Parliamentary sovereignty, and furthermore it calls for the preservation of the principles of rule of law, judicial independence and more importantly the rights of all individuals. Although the Government’s recently launched National Human Rights Framework promises a selection of human rights protection mechanisms, in light of its failure to provide a bill of rights that many Australians want, it is an inadequate attempt at promoting and protecting the more vulnerable groups. Even though the Framework claims that it reserves the function of statutory interpretation for the courts, in reality it empowers the Parliament with the capacity to “guide”[1] the courts into enacting legislation. The Government’s downplay of judicial influence cannot be ignored and this points to a discussion of whether Australia needs a bill of rights. The role of the courts also need to be evaluated with respect to the other branches of government, the legislature and the Executive, in an effort to attain a healthy balance between judicial independence and Parliamentary sovereignty for the people of Australia, and to bring to an end the ongoing debate of whether Australia really needs a bill of rights.
To begin with, consider the Framework’s initiatives. The first objective “reaffirms” the government’s commitment to international treaties. This is beneficial in the sense that certain legislations are implemented
