Liberty Victoria is opposed to the mandatory minimum sentence provisions in the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic), and accordingly is also opposed to the expansion of those provisions to alleged offences against custodial officers through the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 ("the Bill").
As an organisation Liberty Victoria is deeply concerned about the gradual erosion of judicial discretion in sentencing and the move towards mandatory and/or more prescriptive models of sentencing. Part of that concern stems from the need for the legislature to carefully protect the separation of powers so that a strong and independent judiciary is able to ensure that justice is done in the individual case.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has the chance to make good on his claim that he wants to be the Minister who gets children out of detention, the human rights group, Liberty Victoria, said today.
Liberty President George Georgiou SC said Mr Dutton’s comments today that if there were exceptional circumstances he was happy to look at them, was a step in the right direction and confirms that the Minister is responsible for the trauma being suffered by children fearing deportation.
YLLR is an exciting community of young people working to extend and defend human rights in Australia. We aim to achieve social change through practical, reform-orientated advocacy.
The Andrews Government should follow the lead of the ACT and challenge plans for a new facial recognition database, Liberty Victoria said today.
The human rights’ group President George Georgiou SC said police would get frightening access to personal information without adequate safeguards through the collection of 100 million images.
“There has been no case put forward that this is a reasonable, necessary and proportionate response, given the deprivation of privacy that is involved.
Submitted by Liberty Victoria on Thu, 03/12/2015 - 08:29
The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull faces a test in trying to move beyond the Abbott era rhetoric on terrorism, a leading human rights group said today.
Liberty Victoria says Mr Turnbull has been confronted by an outburst by his Chief Whip, Andrew Nikolic, who claims the threat of terrorism is so serious that the traditional debate between civil liberties and the protection of society is "redundant".
There can be little doubt that the cause of civil liberties and human rights has suffered a serious setback in recent times. There are a number of reasons that have been offered for this.
The Presidents of the NSW, Victorian, Queensland and South Australian Councils for Civil Liberties and the Australian Council for Civil Liberties have put together a statement calling on the Australian Parliament to abandon the radical and misguided Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015.
In the aftermath of the recent tragic and brutal acts of terrorism in Paris, Lebanon and other places, the desire to take even more action to protect our community is strong and understandable.
