Australian Human Rights Commission Submission to UN Committee Against Torture, 17 October 2014 23. In Australia, there exist broad protections against discrimination and limited legislative protections of other human rights. 24. The President of the Commission has described the Australian approach to the protection of human rights as a form of ‘exceptionalism’: By this I mean that relative to comparable common and civil law systems, Australia has adopted a multifaceted and unique regime for human rights protection. We have few constitutional or legislative protections for our traditional freedoms such as freedom of speech or protection from arbitrary detention without trial. We have no Charter or Bill of rights, unlike all other common law countries; for most legal systems, all domestic laws are viewed through the prism of the rights defined in either the relevant Constitution or legislative Charter or Bill of Rights; Australia has no regional court like the European Court of Human Rights or similar courts in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The consequence is that Australia is increasingly isolated from evolving jurisprudence and from the legal systems with which we share common values.13 25. During 2009, the Australian Government undertook a National Human Rights Consultation, seeking a broad range of views regarding the protection and promotion of human rights. The Commission, and thousands of other individuals and organisations, contributed to the Consultation. The Consultation Committee report, released in October 2009, recommended, among other things, that the federal Parliament adopt a Human Rights Act. 26. In April 2010, the Government responded to this by announcing that it would not introduce a Human Rights Act. Instead, it announced Australia’s Human Rights Framework for 2010-2014, which commits to a variety of measures to strengthen the protection and promotion of human rights in Australia. 27. The Commission particularly commends the government for the passage of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth). This has been the main success emerging from the Human Rights Framework. The Act introduced parliamentary scrutiny processes relating to the seven major human rights treaties to which Australia is a party, including the CAT. The legislation: o Established the PJCHR to analyse all bills and legislative instruments for compliance with human rights o Requires the production of statements of compatibility of bills and legislative instruments with the seven main human rights treaties to which Australia is a party o Enables the Attorney-General to refer inquiries to the committee. 28. The PJCHR (and process of statements of compatibility) has quickly established itself as an important mechanism to implement Australia’s international human rights obligations at the domestic level. 10