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Keywords: Bill Of Rights

  • RELIGION

    How do we navigate medico-legal questions without a bill of rights?

    • Frank Brennan
    • 03 December 2015

    The consideration of medico-legal problems in the public square of a pluralistic democratic society keeping pace with profound technological change is often marked by simplistic assertions, precluding considerations of comprehensive world views, whether religious or philosophical. It is now commonplace for doctors to be told to leave their consciences at the door, as their patients are consumers and they are suppliers and of course the market decides. Debates about law and policy are often resolved with simplistic assertions about individual rights and autonomy, with little consideration for the public interest, the common good, and the doctor-patient relationship. Even conscience is said to be a matter for contracting out. This evening I ask whether there are more compelling ways to resolve medico-legal dilemmas, while conceding a limited role for law in determining the range of acceptable answers.

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  • CARTOON

    Forgetting the forgotten children

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 18 February 2015
    3 Comments

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Wombs for rent

    • Ellena Savage
    • 05 September 2014
    5 Comments

    When Bill Heffernan said that Julia Gillard was unfit for leadership because she was 'deliberately barren', he didn't really err. He just named our preoccupation with motherhood. But is the drive to procreate so powerful and important that it should override the integrity of women in developing countries? Should it continue to be the defining quality of women?

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Abbott’s temporary reprieve for hate speech prohibition

    • Moira Rayner
    • 08 August 2014
    4 Comments

    Quite rightly the Section 18C repeal bill was seen to remove all limits on ‘freedom of speech’ without regard to the vulnerability of those targeted. Andrew Bolt was infuriated, Senator Brandis lost face and his new Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson was ‘disturbed’ by the bill being shelved. But the PM is a pragmatist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Human Rights, the national interest and the will of the people

    • Frank Brennan
    • 11 April 2014
    1 Comment

    'Whether or not we have a bill of rights, much of our human rights jurisprudence remains partial, failing to extend rights equally to all. Once we investigate much of the contemporary discussion about human rights, we find that often the intended recipients of rights do not include all human beings but only those with certain capacities or those who share sufficient common attributes with the decision makers. It is always at the edges that there is real work for human rights discourse to do.' Frank Brennan's Blackfriars Lecture

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How to fix anti discrimination law

    • Moira Rayner
    • 25 January 2013
    21 Comments

    Anti-discrimination acts are meant to protect vulnerable people, not corporations or dominant ideologies. The employers I represent reap the benefits of understanding that diversity and inclusion are brilliant for business and productivity. The Government's new human rights consolidation bill has missed simple opportunities for real improvement.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard's grotesque people smuggler sledge

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 04 November 2011
    20 Comments

    So-called people smugglers are often penniless teenagers who are simply a link in the chain for those who are seeking legitimate asylum. The Government's new retrospective law will punish such individuals for an act that was legal at the time it was committed.

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  • MEDIA

    'Fundamentalist' Albrechtsen's Malaysia misfire

    • Max Atkinson
    • 13 October 2011
    6 Comments

    In supporting her opposition to gay marriage, the best Janet Albrechtsen could say was that the opinion was her own, and was 'fundamental'. These remarks shed light on Albrechtsen's bizarre attack on the judges of the High Court over their decision on the Malaysia solution.

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  • RELIGION

    Making friends not foes of rights and religion

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 September 2011
    5 Comments

    The Church of the 21st century should be the exemplar of due process, natural justice and transparency. While there can be little useful critique of the final decision of Pope Benedict to force the early retirement of Bishop Bill Morris, there is plenty of scope to review the processes leading up to it.

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  • RELIGION

    Religious groups and the Bill of Rights debate

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 July 2011

    Speech given by Fr Frank Brennan SJ at the 'Law and Religion: Legal Regulation of Religious Groups, Organisations and Communities' Conference Dinner in Melbourne on 15 July 2011.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Bill of Rights power struggle

    • Jonathan Campton
    • 03 July 2009
    1 Comment

    While day one of the National Human Rights Consultation hearing ended with a growing hope for the rights of the oppressed, day two, dominated by politicians and lawyers, diluted this hope in legalism, fear and falsehoods.

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  • RELIGION

    Maintaining the UN's moral gold standard

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 December 2008
    5 Comments

    Sixty years on, it is fashionable to describe the Declaration of Human Rights as a peculiarly western, individualistic conception. It was not. Now is the time for Australia to discuss how best to make the State attentive to the still, small voice of conscience.

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