The Council views some human rights and civil liberties as so fundamental that they should never be curtailed. These include habeas corpus and the prohibitions against slavery, torture and secret trials. John Stuart Mill also accepted that free speech was a right not subject to a simple balancing analysis.
Deputy Premier’s attack on the CMC is a worrying portent for the future of the CMC.
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This Wednesday night 19 September, the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties will host a professional debate about euthanasia at The Irish Club, Brisbane.
QCCL vice president Terry O’Gorman said three guest speakers will discuss all the issues surrounding voluntary euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, assisted dying, palliative care and pain relief that causes death.
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Michael Cope, President of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, said today, "The Council condemns the government’s proposal to amend the Civil Partnerships bill to remove the right to a public ceremony and replace it with a form of registration as a hollow sham and an insult to gay and lesbian couples”
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The purpose of CCTV is said to be protecting the public. In the Council’s view tracking down illegal parking does not fall into this category.
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The CMC review of police discipline and conduct is merely tinkering at the edge of the problems with Queensland’s police complaints process, the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties said today.
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Dr Alex Wodak, Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, said that it is now clear that 'Medically Supervised Injecting Centres (MSICs) provide great benefit to drug users and communities at relatively little cost'.
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The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has today called on the Commonwealth Government to cancel its school chaplaincy program in the light of today’s report on the program by the Ombudsman which provides evidence supporting claims that it is being carried on in breach of the principle of the separation of the church from the state.
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The Council welcomed the comprehensive report by the CMC noting that it recorded that a bad situation had gotten better. The Council supported the recommendations of the CMC but argued that the report did not go far enough.
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The starting point of any censorship system in the Council’s submission should be that as we live in a free society adults should be free to determine what they watch
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The Council has a long standing concern about the use of CCTV particularly as part of the increasing level of surveillance of us all by both public and private bodies.
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The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties today criticized the CMC's announcement that it would take over responsibility for investigating deaths in custody.
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Why do people use drugs? The question should be amplified and rephrased: what makes some young people use drugs that are officially declared dangerous and illegal in contrast to the majority who drink and smoke socially approved substances? The most obvious and natural answer is because they like them. We do not generally look for obscure, psychological or sociological explanations of most drug use in the community. People take alcohol, smoke tobacco, drink tea and coffee because they enjoy the effects of these substances
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In the end, whilst we acknowledge that there may be certain efficiency benefits to your proposal we do not consider that those efficiency benefits outweigh the risks that flow from the collection of this permanent piece of private data about a person.
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The Civil Liberties Council today described as farcical the CMC’s announcement that it would not conclude its investigation into the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee until sometime next year.
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The Bligh government stands condemned for its confused and confusing approach to the issue of same sex surrogacy as opposed to adoption by same sex couples.
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The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has today called on the Queensland government to implement Labor party policy by reforming abortion law in Queensland. If the government is not prepared to lead on this issue it should ask the Law Reform Commission to review the issue as was done in Victoria.
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The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has called upon the Parliamentary
Committee supervising the CMC to summons CMC head Robert Needham to a public hearing.
QCCL Vice President Terry O’Gorman said today a public hearing was needed to
explain why the CMC has taken four years to complete its investigation of the Queensland police handling of the aftermath of the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee.
The members of this Council do not think that there is any single way to protect civil liberties in this country. The pluralistic, open, democratic society in which we live only survives because the citizens of this country believe in it sufficiently to be active in support of it. This however does not mean that we cannot improve our institutional arrangements to ensure that they best support the continued existence of that society.
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