Laws that are due to pass the Victorian Parliament this week seek to override Victoria’s own human rights laws and remove safeguards aimed at ensuring bare minimum standards for the treatment of people locked away in the state’s prisons.
Instead of taking steps to ensure that these basic minimum standards are met, the Victorian Government is seeking pass the Corrections Amendment Bill 2026 (Vic), which would:
- increase the risk that people in the state’s prisons will be subject to solitary confinement, by removing the safeguard that people be in open air for at least an hour each day to make this subject to ‘operational considerations’; and
- retrospectively absolve the Victorian government of liability for violating the rights of people in prison, by denying compensation for people who have already had their human rights breached.
This latest assault on the human rights of people in Victorian prisons is not only inconsistent with international human rights standards, but also Victoria’s own human rights laws. The passage of the proposed laws through the parliament this week will see the Victorian Government issue its 5th override declaration of Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act since it was enacted in 2006.