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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 568 ..

It is, however, the conferral of that kind of role on the Supreme Court that is the basis for the argument, as explained above, that clause 28 might be seen as an undue trespass on personal rights and liberties. What exacerbates the problem is the nature of the task the Supreme Court must perform when it gives assistance and advice to the legislature. Judicial review against rights standards will, or may have, two effects. It will, on the one hand, vest in the Supreme Court a power to impinge upon the range of issues open to the other branches in respect of a vast range of social, political and economic issues; and—

There is a new dot point which reads:

On the other, may thereby diminish to some extent the authority of the legislature and, ultimately, of the power of the citizenry to govern themselves. As these matters become evident there would be a diminution of respect for the judiciary in the eyes of the legislature, the executive and the citizenry. There would also be calls for vetting of judges who decide these cases in order to ascertain the extent to which they would exercise their power of review.

A concerned Bob Carr in the New South Wales committee that looked at the bill of rights issue commented on that. It continues:

Even allowing for the limited scope of judicial review that is part of this dialogue model, there is a clear risk that judges will be seen as part of the political process and not independent of it. This in turn may lead to disrespect for the judges, disrespect for their authority and lack of legitimacy for their decisions. For these sorts of reasons, there are many judges with experience of the task of judicial review who say that this is not an appropriate judicial function.

I have already read from Sir Gerard Brennan’s statements. There are a number of other learned justices who are commented on in the scrutiny of bills report.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (10.51): I will respond very briefly. I regret taking the time of Assembly members on this, but these points were made in the scrutiny of bills committee report and we have had a debate about that. The government has given a fairly detailed response to the issues raised in the scrutiny of bills committee report. I think this particular scrutiny report raises some questions that might usefully be debated in the Assembly at some other time, in the context of the structure of that committee. I will give some indication of part of the response of the government to the points that have just been raised. The government’s response includes the following comment. It says that the scrutiny committee:

… also suggests that, by involving the courts in the interpretation of human rights principles, the bill will undermine the independence of the judiciary and the respect for the rule of law in the wider community.

There is a legitimate philosophical debate about the value of a statutory bill of rights, as opposed to one that is constitutionally entrenched, which allows the courts to strike down inconsistent legislation. But I do not accept the committee’s unnecessarily bleak view of the impact of the bill on democracy in the ACT. The judiciary perform an important

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