Jason Roberts will face an uncertain legal path to a major compensation payout for his more than 20 years’ imprisonment because Victoria’s human rights provisions do not carry the same powers that helped deliver acquitted long-term Canberra prisoner David Eastman more than $7m.
Liberty Victoria president Michael Stanton said Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights did not provide the same access to compensation as is enshrined in the ACT, where a court ruled Mr Eastman was wrongly jailed for nearly 20 years for killing AFP assistant commissioner Colin Winchester in 1989.