No businesses whatsoever sign up to the human rights act

Punter said :

The Human Rights Act makes it quite clear from section 6 only individuals have human rights. There are no business within in the ACT who qualify as an induvidual. Once someone becomes an employee/employer, they are no longer an individual.

Interesting you should raise s6 of the Act. Can’t wait for a smart lawyer to try and have some fun with that.

s6 says that only “individuals” have human rights. But what is an individual? Corporations are considered individuals before the law, so should we take this section to mean only legally recognised individuals?

It’s a sloppy definition, and though a correct purposive construction of the provision should make it clear it applies to humans only, I bet there will be a day when some business finds a savvy way to hide behind it.

che said :

Would people think better of RiotACT if we signed up to the ACT Human Rights Act?

You might have some trouble with:

* Prohibition on torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment – No more rant of the month

* Privacy and reputation – There goes half the stories

* Freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief – You would have to publish any old crap

* Freedom of opinion and expression – No more censoring comments

* The right to vote and to take part in public life – Well, you do have plenty of polls

* Segregation of accused from convicted prisoners – Eliminates the most interesting stories

* Prohibition on self-incrimination – No more YouTube clips by morons

* Fair trial – But this is RiotACT after all

* Compensation for wrongful conviction – Could be expensive

* Right not to be tried or punished more than once for the same offence – Better ban Google from indexing the pages

* Freedom from forced work – Well RiotACT already provides freedom to many from forced work, at least for a few minutes several times a day.

The Human Rights Act makes it quite clear from section 6 only individuals have human rights. There are no business within in the ACT who qualify as an induvidual. Once someone becomes an employee/employer, they are no longer an individual.

Moreover, you’ll find businesses are more often victims of crime or potential victims of crime regarding exposure to criminal justice in this town, what with commercial burglaries / robberies reported almost weekly. With this in mind, try and find the rights of victims of crime in the Human Rights Act. All of a sudden the potential criminals are individuals by definition of the Act and have the rights above the victims (read businesses).

It seems the ‘Act’ has had the presence of mind to give thought to the rights of members of our society during criminal proceedings against them in sections 19 through 25 (and I’ll say correctly so), but not the victims.

che said :

Would people think better of RiotACT if we signed up to the ACT Human Rights Act?

Its a shit law and a shit scheme, designed by nutters, in order to appeal to other nutters.
Their pilot entities, Companion House, Ethical Research, (and the other one, forgettable as they are), are hardly leaders of the community, or relevant to the vast majority of Canberra.

Would people think better of RiotACT if we signed up to the ACT Human Rights Act?

Could we qualify?

Well let’s be honest, as long time readers of RiotACT would be aware, Canberra businesses don’t have the best track record of respecting employees and their human rights:

http://the-riotact.com/?p=7157
http://the-riotact.com/?p=12461
http://the-riotact.com/?p=7762
http://the-riotact.com/?p=4680
http://the-riotact.com/?p=1919

Thanks ACT govt for wasting ratepayers time and money on this useless crap that achieves nothing. 🙁

What possible benefits could signing up bring to a business?

there is no reason whatsoever for an employer to sign up to the provisions contained in this piece of elongated wankery. It contains nothing that isn’t covered by relevant awards, OHS legislation, EO legislation and the Fair Work Act. I’m fairly sure that it is already illegal for my employer to chain me to the carcass of a rotting water buffalo and flog me with a piece of urine soaked hessian (I think that even under Workchoices this was not permitted).

So what do we need this for?