Australian Human Rights Commission Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee, 18 September 2017 9. 3  The Australian Government’s commitment to adopt national justice targets to reduce the rates of imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults and juveniles, and to resource a national strategy to achieve this, as discussed in section 5.2.  The Australian Government’s immigration policy (especially as it relates to refugees and asylum seekers), as discussed in section 10.1.  All Australian governments’ compliance with, and implementation of, the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, as discussed in section 11.2.  The Australian Government’s review of counter-terrorism laws to ensure any limitation on human rights is clearly expressed, necessary for the pursuit of a legitimate purpose, reasonable and proportionate, as discussed in section 14. The Committee should request an update from the Australian Government on its progress in relation to these five priority areas in 12 months time under rule 72 of the Rules of procedure.1 General information Scrutiny of human rights and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (ICCPR article 2; LOI 2 & 4) 10. The Commission commends the Government for establishing the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (PJCHR). 11. The PJCHR analyses bills and legislative instruments introduced into the federal Parliament for compliance with human rights. Some other parliamentary committees also scrutinise legislation taking into account compliance with human rights.2 Since August 2012, the PJCHR has produced over 65 reports to Parliament assessing over 960 bills.3 12. The Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth) requires each bill, regulation and ordinance introduced into Parliament to be accompanied by a statement of compatibility with human rights, defined as the seven core international human rights instruments to which Australia is a party.4 13. The Commission is concerned that legislators do not always have an opportunity to consider the PJCHR’s views during the legislative process with bills sometimes passed into law before the PJCHR has released its conclusions.5 14. The Commission is concerned that there is varying quality in the drafting of statements of compatibility within and across Government departments. 6 Some statements of compatibility devote cursory attention to assessing a draft law’s identified impingement on human rights and some simply assert (without due explanation) that a draft law is compatible with human rights even where an impingement on rights has been acknowledged.7 6