5. Enhancing the role of Parliament in protecting human rights 5.2 Introduction In this Final Report, the Commission recommends that Parliament take a greater role in overseeing how human rights are protected in Australia. The Commission proposes reforms that would: • enhance the effectiveness of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (PJCHR) and the associated process for analysing the human rights impact of proposed laws and regulations, and • ensure there is domestic guidance on human rights standards and obligations over time, that can assist in the quality of consideration of human rights issues • increase the weight that public servants and parliamentarians attach to human rights considerations due to the possibility of those whose rights are restricted having a cause of action to have those impacts addressed. • enhance parliamentary oversight of decisionmaking in relation to the scope of Australia’s international human rights obligations, and actions to be taken to respond to breaches of our international human rights obligations. These proposed reforms to the parliamentary review of human rights are complementary to the need for a Human Rights Act. They are not a substitute for a Human Rights Act. Similarly, a Human Rights Act is not a substitute for these reforms also being undertaken. The PJCHR has been in operation for just over a decade and has made a significant contribution to the consideration of human rights in the lawmaking process. This is considered in detail in the Commission’s Position Paper, A Human Rights Act for Australia (released 2023). Other reforms proposed in this chapter seek to enhance the oversight role of parliamentary decision-making in relation to Australia’s internal human rights obligations. Mechanisms for such oversight have regressed over the past decade, undermining this process. Eight recommendations in this chapter seek to enhance the Committee’s operating legislation and practices to further improve its effectiveness, while also ensuring other improvements in the consideration of human rights impacts of laws and regulations. There is currently limited transparency and accountability for how governments make decisions in response to Australia’s human rights obligations. At the most basic level, governments have stopped the practice of tabling Concluding Observations of human rights treaty committees in Parliament. The Commission noted that the work of the PJCHR is inherently constrained due to the limited legal protection of human rights under Australian law. The single biggest change that can improve the effectiveness of the PJCHR’s work is for its work to occur in conjunction with a Human Rights Act. This would: • provide stronger accountability measures for public servants to fully consider human rights (in accordance with the proposed positive duty) • ensure that laws, policies and programs are developed with the full engagement of affected communities (in accordance with the proposed participation duty and the role of the PJCHR to assess the adequacy of this participation) Concluding Observations are the outcomes of a periodic review of how Australia can better meet its human rights obligations under a particular treaty it has ratified. These reviews occur approximately every 5 to 7 years under each treaty. Tabling them in Parliament with a statement of response from the Government is not onerous. Australia also has a responsibility to disseminate information about its human rights obligations. The UN human rights committees in their Concluding Observations routinely recommend the dissemination of the review outcomes across the community. The failure to table them in Parliament potentially puts Australia in breach of its human rights obligations at the most rudimentary level. FREE & EQUAL: Revitalising Australia’s Commitment to Human Rights 101