Page 3562 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 25 August 2009
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It is this government’s view that good law is best made soberly, based on evidence rather than intuition and driven by expert opinion, not the editorial pages of the most outrageous tabloids we can find or the most shrill and ignorant of the morning radio shock jocks. Never has this been more true than when dealing with the spectre of fundamentally shifting our attitude to basic human rights.
This report clearly sheds light on the paths that other jurisdictions have gone down. Having read this report, I am certain that there are opportunities for the ACT to adopt measures to make sure that the legal tools are there for the police and the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions to pick up and use.
In my view, the Attorney-General and his colleagues on the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General took a very sensible approach in April of this year. The national agreement on organised crime is the embodiment of an idea that there can be a national approach without the need for carbon copy tactics.
As well as the things already mentioned in tabling the government report, the Attorneys-General agreed to better coordinate law enforcement efforts. Jurisdictions will do this by developing shared priorities, including improving interoperability, facilitating improved information and intelligence sharing and through the coordination of investigations and targeting development activities.
These efforts, along with the legislative measures agreed by SCAG, are consonant with the ACT’s circumstances and experiences. The ACT already has a good many of these measures in hand. These measures can, and will, be implemented such that they are in accordance with the Human Rights Act.
It should come as no surprise to members of the Assembly that one of the key rights engaged is the right to freedom of association, which is protected in section 15(1) of the Human Rights Act. The meaning of this right must be considered in light of the considerable international jurisprudence on this right. Section 31 of the Human Rights Act makes clear that, when interpreting the nature, meaning and extent of a human right, regard can be had to foreign and international jurisprudence.
The nature and purpose of the right to freedom of association was succinctly defined in the Canadian Supreme Court in Lavigne v Ontario Public Service Employees Union when it observed:
Freedom of association is the freedom to combine together for the pursuit of common purposes or the advancement of common causes … at its core rests a rather simple proposition: the attainment of individual goals, through the exercise of individual rights is generally impossible without the aid and cooperation of others.
It does not follow that, simply because a person associates with a member of a motorcycle gang, they must be up to no good. Indeed, it cannot be assumed that every single member of an outlaw motorcycle gang is involved in serious and organised crime without the evidence on each individual member to support such a claim.
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