As public servants, we have obligations to act and make decisions compatibly with human rights and to give proper consideration to human rights when making decisions.
In this video, we'll dig a little deeper into the different rights protected by the Human Rights Act to help you identify those that might be relevant to your work.
There are 23 sections in the Human Rights Act, which set out protected rights with some sections covering multiple rights.
For example, freedom of expression under Section 21 of the Act covers both the right to hold an opinion without interference and the right to seek and communicates information and ideas.
The rights protected by the Human Rights Act are drawn from key international human rights treaties.
Most rights come from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects many of the rights we associate with liberal democracies like the right to vote and participate in public affairs and the right to peaceful assembly.
Two rights are drawn from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
These are: The right to education and the right to health services.
A particularly important set of rights in Queensland is the cultural rights of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
These are drawn in part from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Different rights will apply in different contexts.
For example, there are a range of rights that relate specifically to the criminal justice process and to people in prison or other places of detention, such as mental health facilities.
Other rights may be engaged by policies and laws across a range of areas.
For example, the right to privacy may be engaged by any policy or law that requires the collection of personal information.
You can access more resources to help you understand the different rights protected by the Human Rights Act on the Queensland Government Human Rights Portal for public sector employees.
In that portal you can find plain English guides and quick reference resources, as well as a detailed guide on the nature and scope of each right.
Once you have identified which rights are relevant to a decision, policy or law, the next question to ask yourself is whether any of these rights are limited or interfered with, and if so, whether those limitations are justified.