Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

Tag: politics

  • Ugandan Social Media Tax – Following a tradition of quelling dissent?

    Ugandan Social Media Tax – Following a tradition of quelling dissent?

    By Shardha Rajam and Mihika Poddar​ On June 1st this year, the Parliament of Uganda imposed a tax on usage of social media and internet messaging platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter. The Ugandan Government, which on prior occasions has shut down and regularly censored digital media, claimed that the tax was imposed to […]

  • Explainer: what are abortion clinic safe-access zones and where do they exist in Australia?

    Explainer: what are abortion clinic safe-access zones and where do they exist in Australia?

    Flickr photo by jordan_uhl Tania Penovic, Monash University New South Wales recently became the fifth Australian jurisdiction to enact legislation that establishes safe-access zones around abortion clinics. The legislation is a response to picketing of clinics by anti-abortion protesters for more than two decades. These protesters characterise themselves as “sidewalk counsellors” but their conduct has […]

  • The Human Rights implications of the Electoral Disclosure Reform and Foreign Influence Bills

    The Human Rights implications of the Electoral Disclosure Reform and Foreign Influence Bills

    By Dr Adam Fletcher The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017, along with the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill 2017 and the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme (Charges Imposition) Bill 2017, constitute a package of legislation designed to overhaul Australia’s political donation and covert lobbying rules. The Government’s aim with these Bills […]

  • With no Coalition free vote, where to now on the road to same-sex marriage?

    By Paula Gerber The much-anticipated announcement of the government’s position on same-sex marriage raised more questions than it answered. By rejecting a free vote on same-sex marriage for Coalition MPs during this term of parliament, the government ensured that Australia will continue to be the only developed English-speaking country in the world where marriage is an […]

  • The evidence is in: you can’t link imprisonment to crime rates

    By Bronwyn Naylor Prison populations in Australia are increasing rapidly. This is usually said to be driven by increases in crime. Digging deeper though, in Australia and internationally, the link is far less clear. The extent of a country’s use of imprisonment seems in fact to be more a matter of policy choice than of […]

  • The High Court and the Freedom of Political Communication

    By Melissa Castan What do Australian charities’ tax exemptions, #Twitdef and Wikileaks all have in common? Give me a moment. Last week the High Court held that Aid/Watch is a charitable organisation for the purposes of tax assessment. This would be unremarkable, but Aid/Watch is an organisation that campaigns for effective foreign aid policies through […]