Further HRLC Submission to the Review of the Victorian Charter

The HRLC has made a further submission to the review of the Victorian Charter in response to issues raised in other public submissions to the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee.  The further submission addresses some of the views expressed in relation to the operation of the Victorian Charter that are unfounded in evidence or based on myths or misunderstandings, including that:

  • the common law and our political system of representative democracy already adequately protect human rights;
  • the Victorian Charter undermines parliamentary sovereignty and transfers power from parliamentarians to unelected judges;
  • the Victorian Charter is a lawyers' picnic and leads to more litigation;
  • the Victorian Charter protects the rights of minorities at the expense of the majority and is therefore undemocratic;
  • the Victorian Charter is bureaucratic, costly and inefficient;
  • the Victorian Charter undermines religious freedoms;
  • human rights are vague and ill-defined; and
  • the expression of the human rights contained in the Victorian Charter is inconsistent with the expression of those rights in international conventions, like the ICCPR.

The HRLC's comprehensive submission to the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee is available here.

 

MichelleBennett