Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) welcomes a West Australian bill intended to reduce the number of Indigenous people being imprisoned for failure to pay fines. The Sentencing Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 proposes to give Western Australian criminal courts wider discretion in sentencing low-level offences. In particular it aims to divert first-time offenders away from incarceration … Read More >>
ALHR has written to the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, congratulating her Government on its decision to introduce legislation that will see 17-year-olds removed from the State’s adult prisons within a year. ALHR has long campaigned for the Queensland government to act to address this violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and recently stepped … Read More >>
ALHR is pleased to announce the launch of our new national LGBTI Rights Subcommittee The LGBTI community in Australia continues to face varied challenges, from verbal harassment to forced medical intervention or the inability to access affordable medical care. Elsewhere, in places like the Middle East, Russia, Africa and Asia the LGBTI community is habitually subject to severe human rights abuses … Read More >>
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) is deeply disappointed that the recent release of the Nauru files – detailing assaults, sexual abuse, child abuse, self-harm attempts and dire living conditions – has not triggered major policy change by the Australian Government. Some 2,000 people remain trapped on Nauru and Manus Island. More than 1,400 of … Read More >>
Benedict Coyne, President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights has published an Op-Ed on the Australian Lawyers Alliance website looking at the human rights issues surrounding abortion decriminalisation in Queensland. READ THE OP-ED HERE
In the wake of images of a teenage prisoner being punished with a spit mask over his head at a Brisbane Jail, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) is calling on the Queensland Government to urgently increase the age of a child under the Juvenile Justice Act 1992 from 17 years to 18 years old … Read More >>
Chorus of opposition to racial discrimination changes grows Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) is deeply concerned by the renewed attack on important human rights protections with proposed amendments to Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination introduced into the Senate via a private member’s bill. Dr. Tamsin Clarke, Chair of ALHR’s Freedoms Subcommittee said: “when … Read More >>
The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre has reported on the growing momentum in Australia for a National Action Plan and points to the high level of support for the Joint Civil Society Statement released by the Australian Human Rights Commission earlier this month. ALHR was one of many organisations who formally endorsed the Statement. … Read More >>
Lawyers Weekly reports on ALHR’s participation in a coalition of civil society groups calling on the government to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in Australia. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, unanimously endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011, require businesses to respect human rights and governments … Read More >>
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) has expressed its strong support for the decriminalisation of abortion in NSW. Benedict Coyne, ALHR President said, “Failure to provide safe, legal and accessible abortion services is a violation of fundamental human rights. ALHR supports the decriminalisation of abortion and the creation of exclusion zones surrounding abortion clinics as … Read More >>
Image Credit: nationalunitygovernment.org Protesters in central Geraldton behind a row of crosses representing deaths in custody. NSW has recorded its first Indigenous death in police cell custody for 16 years. On 19 July 2016, Ms. Rebecca Maher, a 36-year-old Wiradjuri woman and mother of four, was detained for apparent intoxication and placed in a holding cell at … Read More >>
ALHR’s BHR Sub-Committee has had a busy first year. Amy Sinclair and the BHR team have participated in the OHCHR’s Corporate Accountability and Remedy Project and maintained concerted advocacy efforts calling for a National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights. Read our attached report for further details of the BHR Sub-Committee’s activities.
