Submission to the Inquiry into the Potential for a Human Rights

In this submission, EDO responds to the following terms of reference for the Inquiry: • The effectiveness of current laws and mechanisms for protecting human rights in South Australia and any possible improvements to these mechanisms; • The operation and effectiveness of human rights legislation in other jurisdictions; • The strengths and weaknesses of adopting a Human Rights Act in South Australi. [...] In support of our recommendations, we attach the following: • Attachment 1 – A Healthy Environment is a Human Right: Report on the Status of the Human Right to a Healthy Environment in Australia (August 2022) which describes the importance of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment (the ‘right to a healthy environment’) and calls on all levels of Australian government to en. [...] • Attachment 3 – Submission from EDO to the ACT Government on its investigation into including the right to a healthy environment in the ACT’s Human Rights Act 2004 (August 2022), which strongly recommends that the ACT Government includes the right to a healthy environment in the ACT’s Human Rights Act 2004, and which makes 17 recommendations to ensure that, if the right to a healthy environment i. [...] Notwithstanding the importance of these rights for the enjoyment and protection of other human rights impacted by the environment, including the right to a healthy environment, health, and the rights of children, South Australia has inadequate protection of these environmental and community procedural rights within its environmental legislation. [...] 10 rights protected under the Act may be subject to ‘reasonable limits set by laws that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society’, and that in deciding whether a limit is reasonable, all relevant factors must be considered including the nature of the right affected, the importance of the purpose of the limitation, the nature and extent of the limitation, the relationship betw.