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Australian legislation is increasingly abrogating fundamental human rights. This course catalogues this trend, before offering a way in which the courts might protect human rights through the use of Chapter III (of the Constitution) notions of institutional integrity and judicial independence. Practically, these rights are extremely important for individuals, and an appreciation of the extent to which they are being eroded, together with possible legal solutions, is considered valuable.

This course will consider the constitutional protection of fundamental human rights such as presumption of innocence, right to silence, the right to natural justice and an open court, fairness in sentencing, and property rights. It will consider the extent to which such rights have increasingly been abrogated by Australian statutes, in the context of a comparison with equivalent legal regimes elsewhere.

On completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. understand the extent to which Commonwealth and State legislation continues to abrogate fundamental common law rights, particularly in the area of criminal due process;
2. understand traditional ways in which the common law protects such rights, and the limited way in which the Australian Constitution expressly protects such rights;
3. understand the High Court's interpretation of Chapter III of the Constitution, and its possible implications for rights protection;
4. understand the existing case law on existing fundamental freedoms such as presumption of innocence, right to silence, right to open courts, right to confront witnesses/natural justice, fair sentencing, and property rights.