August 2009 - The Police Association Victoria

19
Human Rights
For Police
The Police Federation of Australia made representations to the National Human
Rights Consultation public hearings in Canberra last month. CEO Mark Burgess,
representing 52,000 police around the country told the hearings that police officers
know quite a lot about limitations on human rights because they are one of the most
human rights-limited professions in the county.
“Police have no right to silence in disciplinary matters,” Mark Burgess told the hearings.
“We are overseen by ethical standards bodies, ombudsmen, police integrity or crime and
misconduct bodies in the Commonwealth and every state and territory. And under the
new proposed harmonized OH&S laws, certain police operations may be exempted
from coverage in the legislation leaving police officers exposed and vulnerable.”
The PFA strongly supports the
human rights protections that
we enjoy in Australia and it
believes that it is for lawmakers
- our politicians - to strike the
balance in determining those rights
and limitations, and the protections
necessary for society as a whole.
Striking that balance is difficult,
time-consuming, and sometimes
controversial. Our elected
politicians, representing all of us,
are best placed to do that and face
the electoral consequences if they
get it wrong.
The enactment of an over-arching
human rights law, that opens the
way to re-interpretation of other
laws, seems to be a lazy way of
changing laws to give greater
protection to human rights.
So what reforms would we like
to see?
If some laws are deficient or give
less weight to human rights than
they should, then those specific laws
should be amended or repealed.
The Parliament’s Scrutiny of Bills
committee could be re-vamped to
more effectively examine legislation
and publicise its findings. That
Parliamentary Committee might
be doing a good job but, from the
outside, it looks like a paper tiger.
Then again, there are some
inequities and injustices that
won’t be fixed by changing laws or
re-balancing laws to give greater
weight to human rights.
Think, for example, of failures in
child protection or health care or
care of the mentally ill. These shortcomings
in society require improved
parenting and child support
services, more GP’s and nurses, and
better mental health services.
These are matters for
Governments and Parliaments in
setting priorities and allocating
budgets. They are most certainly
not matters for judges to determine.
There is room for much debate
for and against measures against
outlaw motor cycle gangs, but the
scope for national criminal laws in
a nation of 22 million people seems
to be receding as a result of there
being a charter of rights in Victoria
and the ACT.
Only recently, the ACT’s
Corrections Minister ruled out
intrusive searches of prisoners as
a breach of their human rights - so
contraband, including drugs, is
potentially going undetected in the
ACT’s new prison.
The Police Federation of
Australia has come to the view
that a legislative charter of rights
would transfer power from elected
members of parliament to unelected
judges. On this ground alone we are
opposed to such a charter.
So what does the Police Federation
see as the way forward?
• We would welcome black
and white laws guaranteeing
fundamental rights such
as freedom from torture
and slavery.
• We suggest that other human
rights be secured by changes and
improvement to existing laws,
not an over-arching Human
Rights Act.
• We think that a new, beefedup
Parliamentary Joint
Committee on Human Rights
should be established to give
effective scrutiny to all Bills and
legislative instruments, including
Regulations introduced into the
federal parliament.
In this way our elected members
of parliament are the ones to
determine the balance of rights
and responsibilities we enjoy as
individual citizens and the needs
of society.
For the PFA’s full submission to
the Human Rights Consultation go
to www.pfa.org.au news page.
www.tpav.org.au The Police Association Journal August 2009