Older woman facing eviction A 96-year-old woman was given a 60 day notice to vacate the home she had lived in for 21 years. She was unable to find alternative accommodation in this period of time. An advocate helped her to contest the notice to vacate in a tribunal. The advocate argued that it was a breach of Charter rights. As a consequence, she was given an additional 30 days and was assisted in finding appropriate accommodation. Extracted from Human Rights Law Centre, 101 Charter Cases, 2022.8 3.3 Democratic (a) A parliamentary model based on dialogue The Commission proposes that a federal Human Rights Act be based on the legislative dialogue model. This is a model that has been adopted in comparable jurisdictions, including the UK and New Zealand, as well as in Australian jurisdictions: the ACT, Victoria and Queensland.9 Dialogue models are based on each branch of government having a distinct role to play, in line with the ordinary institutional functions each performs: • Parliament considers human rights when it makes laws, • the Executive considers human rights when it formulates policies and makes decisions in accordance with those laws, and • the Judiciary considers human rights when it interprets laws.10 70 The ‘dialogue’ occurs through mechanisms of mutual oversight and interaction. The dialogue Human Rights Act would work to enhance, not disturb, Australia’s existing democratic structure, and the Commission’s proposal has been designed to respect key constitutional principles such as the separation of powers, and the distinctions between federal and state governments. The key factor of the dialogue model is that it maintains the supremacy of Parliament and is therefore entirely compatible with parliamentary democracies like Australia.11 Dialogue between the branches increases comprehension and accountability for human rights across the whole of government,12 and embeds a shared human rights culture, through mechanisms of mutual oversight and interaction. Dialogue models also ensure that the public is informed about parliamentary decisions that affect their human rights, thereby promoting greater accountability among elected leaders, and embeds rights considerations within the broader public discourse.13 A further key characteristic of the dialogue model is its prioritisation of a preventative approach to human rights protection – by requiring law makers and decision makers to consider human rights early in the process, subsequent human rights breaches and associated litigation may be avoided altogether.14