 Charter of Rights - Brennan to talk to Labor caucus
In a recent report we noted that the federal government had not yet responded to Frank Brennan's committee that had undertaken a 'Consultation on Human Rights'.
Frank Brennan is a lawyer and also a Jesuit priest.
We've since heard that some church leaders have told the Attorney General that such a Charter would be divisive and they would not support it and he seemd to emphathise with that view.
Now James Allan, the Garrick professor of law at the University of Queensland, has written the following article in The Australian.
He points out that Frank Brennan is due to speak to the Labor Caucus next week.
James outlines that Brennan was NOT a disinterested person and had already spoken in FAVOUR of a Bill of Rights before being appointed to chair the Consultation.
He predicts that whilst a full 'Charter of Rights' might not be enacted, other provisions that will have similar effects will be forthcoming!
So BEWARE!
Read on to find out the full story...
The article by James Allan....
Rights Bill is still a threat
James Allan The Australian March 06, 2010
"NEXT Wednesday, Frank Brennan is due to speak to the Labor Party caucus. Brennan chaired the Attorney-General's committee that came out in favour of a statutory bill of rights.
Brennan was described, when that committee was set up, as a fence-sitter, a disinterested person. Of course that label was nonsense. Before being appointed, Brennan had been on the record more than once as being in favour of Australia enacting a statutory bill of rights. In fact Attorney-General Robert McClelland didn't appoint a single known bill-of-rights opponent or sceptic.
Still, public opposition to this statutory bill of rights proposal, including among a big chunk of the Attorney-General's Labor Party colleagues, has been such that we learned a fortnight ago that cabinet was not treating a statutory bill of rights as a high priority. That's a polite way of saying nothing will happen before the next election.
Enter Brennan and the invitation offered to him by Labor Party proponents of a bill to speak to caucus. Presumably the hope is that Brennan will stiffen the spine of the government and get it to think again. Let's hope not. I'm a long-time opponent of these anti-democratic instruments and the Rudd government was brave to stand up to the chardonnay-sipping lawyers' wing of the party over this.
But what will Brennan say to caucus this Wednesday? Here's my bet...
...The sensible wing of the Labor Party here looks as though it has killed off any explicit enacting of a statutory bill of rights. But the Brennan committee foreshadowed a back-up strategy that the lawyers' wing of the Labor Party just might try.
The ploy here will be to insert one of the key provisions of a statutory bill of rights, known as a reading-down provision, into another statute, probably the Acts Interpretation Act. This transplanted provision will do the same work of authorising judges to interpret all other statutes in a new-age way as it would in a real bill of rights. It will allow them to read other statutes in a way they, the judges, happen to think is more rights-respecting.
A similar provision in Britain has resulted in the judges saying they can ignore the clear meaning of other statutes and the clear intentions of parliament. Put one of these in some other statute and you get a bill of rights in all but name. Watch to see if this secondary ploy is being foisted on the sensible wing of Labor.
Read the full article - click here.
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