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Civil Liberties Council Vice-President Terry O’Gorman said the Police Minister has apparently decided to join in the Queensland Opposition’s ‘attack the Judges’ strategy as opening shots are fired in the Queensland State Election due in October this year.
Read MoreThe right to freedom of speech is a fundamental right which the City Council in fact has a duty to facilitate. It should do so by enacting laws which comply with its obligations under the Human Rights Act.
Read MoreThere is a difference between how our Criminal Code deals with the defence of mistake and how the Common Law deals with it. At common-law, a person will succeed in a defence of mistake of fact, if they held the belief in the mistaken fact honestly. However, under the Queensland Criminal Code the mistake of fact defence can only succeed when a person not only honestly has made a mistake, but their belief is reasonable.
Once again, public commentary on this issue seems to ignore the fact that Queensland law already provides for a mixture of subjective and objective factors in assessing whether or not the accused has made a mistake of fact. In particular, in our review of the law we found no support for the view that “reckless indifference” would ever be consistent with the reasonableness requirement in the Criminal Code
We can accept that there is a case, as there is in relation to churches, that such spaces are kept exclusively for the believers. Though it is our view, that the draft bill needs to be amended to make it clear that it is restricted to facilities dedicated to such spiritual purposes. Again, it is our position, that should the religious body make these facilities available on a commercial basis, they lose the right to avail selves of this exception. We also make the comment, that it is not clear to us why this is not covered by clause 36.
Read MoreThe Council calls upon the government to withdraw its proposed campaign finance electoral law reforms and to revisit the rules relating to third parties, to ensure that they do not impose an unfair burden on many organisations that will deter them from expressing their views on important topics.
Read MoreRestrictions on electoral expenditure are akin to the rules of debate in a meeting which restrict the length of speeches and provide for rights of reply. This feature of expenditure caps makes them more acceptable than donation bans or caps.
Read MoreReligious worship is essential to most people's lives. This is true for non-believers as well as believers once we recognise that freedom of religious worship includes the freedom not to worship.
Once we accept that proposition the only generally acceptable basis for freedom of worship is equal freedom for everybody. Each person when considering their own claim to be able to worship freely, would reject a proposal that gave them less freedom to do so then another person.
Religious belief is primarily a matter of individual conscience. However, freedom of religion also encompasses the freedom to manifest one’s belief in community with others and in public. This is because witness in words and deeds is bound up with the existence of religious convictions.
The QCCL welcomes this Inquiry, given the recent raids by the Australian Federal Police on media organisations who published disclosures from public sector whistleblowers. In 2019, Australia has also slipped several places in the World Press Freedom Index[1] due to a range of laws that infringe upon public interest reporting and the ability of journalists to protect their sources. The most concerning of these laws are discussed below.
In the absence of any explicit protection of freedom of speech and a free press in Australia's legal framework, it is critical that whistleblowers and the Australian press are provided with necessary protection to enable them to fulfil their democratic roles of holding the Government to account and keeping the public informed.
Read MoreThe Council welcomes yesterday’s decision by the Chief Magistrate to reject the Brisbane City Council‘s application to prohibit the protest march in the city this morning.
Read MoreThe Premier today released a statement in which she said there was evidence that protesters were arming themselves with booby traps, which could harm those who remove the protestors from a place of protest.
Read MoreThe necessity for the reform of the law of bail contained in this Bill is made clear by the statistics that 80% of children in detention are on remand and only 16 percent of young people on remand go on to receive a custodial sentence and therefore the vast majority of them are spending unnecessary time in detention.
Read MoreIn other words, having regard to the unbearable pain and suffering of those with terminal or incurable illnesses a well-informed person could not reasonably reject VAD so long as it was only permitted in circumstances where all reasonable steps had been taken to protect the interests of the vulnerable
Read MoreThe Council supports a subjectivist approach to the criminal law. Subjectivism relies on the notion that individuals can be considered culpable for harm only where they were at the material time aware of the risk of causing that harm, and thus were able to avoid it. This means that it is important that the defendant voluntarily causes the outcome, either by consciously running the risk of that outcome or by actually intending it.
Read More"Citizenship is person's basic right for it is nothing less than the right to have rights.”
“Citizenship is not a license that expires upon misbehaviour. Where does the principle underlying this legislation stop? Could a citizen be deprived of her nationality for evading tax or social security fraud?”
Read MoreA Human Rights Act is not a panacea, ultimately only an active citizenry can protect our rights and liberties. However, the Act will provide a new tool that citizens of this State can use to protect themselves. Perhaps more importantly, it will force decision-makers to consider the particular circumstances of each individual, about whom they have to make a decision. That must result in better decisions and better government.Despite our criticisms, we are of the view that this Bill represents a bold reform and this is not the time to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Read MoreA Human Rights Act is not a panacea, ultimately only an active citizenry can protect our rights and liberties. However, the Act will provide a new tool that citizens of this State can use to protect themselves
Read MoreDomestic and family violence is an ongoing scourge in our community. We do not think it necessary to repeat what is already well-known about the level of family and domestic violence and the harm that it does. These statistics are in any event, well summarised in the discussion paper.
However from a Civil Liberties point of view whilst the prevention of harm is a necessary condition for government to take action it is not a sufficient condition.
ln taking action to protect members of the community from harm, the state has to have regard to the
rights and liberties of other individuals. ln particular, before interfering with the rights and liberties of others it is that fundamental that the State demonstrates that the proposed measure will be effective at protecting the members of the community it is intended to protect.
It is extremely alarming that some parts of our government seem to think they should be protected from scrutiny by the elected representatives of the people of the country. This is an anathema to any Democrat.
Read MoreThe QCCL unreservedly condemns all forms of racial vilification and discrimination. However in the Council’s view, it is another thing to make the expression of such views illegal
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