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Course

Australian Bills of Rights - JURD7461

Faculty: Faculty of Law

School: Faculty of Law

Course Outline: See below

Campus: Sydney

Career: Postgraduate

Units of Credit: 6

EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)

Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2

Enrolment Requirements:

Pre-requisite: 36 UOC of JURD courses for students enrolled prior to 2013. For students enrolled after 2013, pre-requisite: 72 UOC of JURD courses.

Excluded: LAWS8061

CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)

Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule

Further Information: See Class Timetable

View course information for previous years.

Description

Australia is now the only major constitutional democracy in the world without some form of written bill of rights, or comprehensive rights charter. Yet, in recent years, two Australian jurisdictions – the ACT and Victoria – have moved to adopt state-level rights charters (the ACT Human Rights Act 2004 and Victorian Charter of Rights and Responsibilities 2006). This course will examine these two state bills of rights, and their likely future interpretation in light of both existing case-law and comparative experience in jurisdictions such as the US, Canada, South Africa and the UK. The course will also explore the broader theoretic stakes behind these interpretive questions, ongoing debates about the potential amendment of these charters (so as, for example, to include more extensive socio-economic rights protections), and the adoption of a rights charter at a national level.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants should:
  • Understand the various approaches to protection of human rights without a bill of rights
  • Understand the history of debates about bills of rights in Australia, and the broader theoretical debates about the desirability, in particular their impact on the functioning of democratic institutions
  • Understand the origins, structure, content and impact of the ACT Human Rights Act 2004-and the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities
  • Understand the status of, and issues raised by, socio-economic rights under these rights charters
  • Understand the various models of bills of rights in operation in comparable jurisdictions
  • Understand fundamental issues of constitutional and statutory interpretation as they relate to human rights

Main Topics

  • Human rights - their origin, meaning and content, and competing models of the protection of human dignity and relationships
  • International obligations relating to the implementation of human rights at the national level and the different categories of rights (civil and political, economic, social and cultural, and third generation rights
  • The implementation and protection of human rights without a bill of rights
  • Models of bills of rights - judicially enforceable and other models, constitutionally entrenched and statutory bills of rights
  • The status of economic, social and cultural rights, the desirability and practicability of including them in consititutional or statutory charters of rights, and means of implementing and enforcing such rights
  • Debates about Bills of Rights in Australia and the development of modern Australian charters of rights
  • The ACT Human Rights Act 2004-and the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities: origins, structure, content and impact
  • The prospects for a federal Charter of Rights and future developments at the State and Territory level

Assessment

Class Participation - 20%
Take Home Examination - 80%
Library

Study Levels

Undergraduate Study Postgraudate Study Postgraduate Research Study Non-Award Study

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