Defending rights to public participation
Our ability to come together and protest is crucial to achieving positive social change. Yet in recent years, we have seen a proliferation of anti-protest laws and practices designed to limit public participation. We resist anti-democratic protest laws and practices and call for laws that protect rights to public participation. When necessary, we challenge repressive legislation through political and media advocacy or the courts. We respond to restrictive policing and surveillance of protests and protestors and provide strategic legal support to racialised communities who face repression for exercising their political opinion.
Advancing digital rights
Digital disinformation is used to create division and to polarise our communities for political or financial gain. We push for stronger protections from exploitation and practices which diminish the capacity for those experiencing racial and socio-economic injustice from participating online.
Empowering Australia's whistleblowers
People who blow the whistle on wrongdoing are crucial to our democracy. But right now, whistleblowers in Australia are actively discouraged from speaking out. To address this, we are establishing the Whistleblower Project to provide expert legal support to people who want to speak out on injustice and human rights abuses. We are also working to secure stronger legal protections for whistleblowers who speak out in the public interest.
Defending the right to protest
Our right to protest is fundamental to our democracy, but is under attack. The Human Rights Law Centre is fighting to protest protest through advocacy and strategic litigation.
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Fighting disinformation and hate speech
Disinformation is used to create division and to polarise our communities for political or financial gain. The Human Rights Law Centre advocates for legal reforms to prevent its spread and penalties for politicians who deliberately mislead the public.
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Defending whistleblowers
The Human Rights Law Centre is defending whistleblowers and advocating for law reform so that whistleblowers should be protected, not punished.
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Stop the SLAPP: Protecting Free Speech in Australia
Stop the SLAPP shines a light on the rise of Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) being used in Australia by the powerful and the wealthy.
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Protest in Peril
The Protest in Peril report analyses and compiles every single bill across Australia over the last two decades which has impacted upon the right to protest, and has found the right to protest is being steadily eroded in Australia.
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Fighting corporate influence in Australian politics
Big corporations shouldn’t be allowed to manipulate politicians to put their profits ahead of our wellbeing. The Human Rights Law Centre advocates for changes to laws and policies to end the cycle of corporate influence in our political system.
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High Court win defending the right to protest in Tasmania
Freedom of speech and the right to protest are essential for a healthy, vibrant democracy. In October 2017, in a landmark decision, the High Court protected these fundamental values, ruling that Tasmania’s anti-protest laws violated Australia’s Constitution.
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Acknowledgement of Country
The Human Rights Law Centre acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands across Australia, including the lands of the Wurundjeri, Boon Wurrung, Gadigal, Ngunnawal, Darug and Wadawurrung people where we work from.
We pay our respect to Elders past and present. This land always was, and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. Sovereignty has never been ceded.
WARNING: This site contains images or names of people who have passed away.