Page 6125 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010
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of the relevant literature, international case law and experience of other jurisdictions with legally codified economic, social and cultural rights, such as Ireland, South Africa and India.
The report modestly indicates that the project team had the benefit of visits from four distinguished South African visitors, including a current and a former justice from the South African Constitutional Court. In fact, it was in no small part due to the calibre of the principal investigators, as professors Charlesworth and Byrnes are called for the ARC grant purposes, that the ACT was able to attract to Canberra the likes of justices Yvonne Mokgoro and Albie Sachs of the South African Constitutional Court, Mr Cameron Jacobs of the South African Human Rights Commission and Professor Sandy Liebenberg of the Stellenbosch University to take part in the dialogue that has informed this report. Indeed, I was particularly privileged to have had the opportunity to host a roundtable session here at the Assembly where our discussions were led by Professor Liebenberg.
While some may argue that the situation in the ACT is a world away from the economic, social and cultural experiences of South Africa, we should never forget that human rights are of a universal and individual nature. They apply as much to citizens of the world in Canberra as they do in Cape Town. It was nevertheless fascinating for me and others who attended the sessions to hear first hand from these dignitaries about their experiences of how South Africa has approached progressive realisation of economic, social and cultural rights in the wake of extended periods of rights repressions in that country.
I used those words “progressive realisation” deliberately. There are those who fear what they perceive as a sudden adoption of any new rights-based framework. But as this report clearly discusses and ultimately recommends for consideration by government and the ACT community, there are ways that economic, social and cultural rights could be incrementally and progressively absorbed, subject to available resources within our existing framework and in the context of the ACT statute book.
To explore those methods and to inform the report, a pivotal component of the work of the project team was holding a series of roundtable forums, in many instances led by the South African visitors, to gauge the views of a number of representatives from government and the community sector, with a particular focus on topics such as health, housing, education, the environment and water issues.
The project team concludes that the inclusion of most economic, social and cultural rights in the Human Rights Act, based on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, would be desirable. They make 15 recommendations about the particular rights that should be included in the Human Rights Act, including rights to adequate housing, health, a healthy environment, education, work and the right to take part in cultural life. The report also identifies those rights not recommended for inclusion and the reasons why they should not be included: the right to self-determination, the right to intellectual property and the right to protection of the family and children—as a similar right is already recognised in section 11 of the Human Rights Act.
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