Suchergebnisse

The Discrimination Act has played an essential role in protecting the right to equality in the ACT but has not been substantially reviewed since its enactment in 1991 . The HRC requested this report to aid that review process. The report considers the need to include an equality duty in the Discrimination Act and formulates a duty based on examples in proposed and existing discrimination legislation. Part 1: Why the ACT Discrimination Act needs a positive duty All existing Australian discrimination law prohibits discrimination on listed grounds. Those laws are 'negative' because they create a duty not to discriminate. 'Positive' duties require duty-bearers to act, an equality duty might for example, require duty-bearers to promote equality. The Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination rather than imposing positive duties. Aside from the HRC's own-motion inquiry power, the Act is a 'complaintsled' model that only applies once a complaint has been received. Legislation that depends on complaints is only as powerful as the people who rely on it. Victims of discrimination often come from the most vulnerable groups in society, while those responsible for discrimination can be well-financed, experienced litigants. Positive duties shift the responsibility to implement discrimination law to duty-bearers, reducing the burden on victims. Prohibitions are reactive and while they have successfully eliminated many of the most overt forms of discrimination, 'negative' duties a re ill-suited to more complex sources of inequality like indirect discrimination and entrenched disadvantage. Indirect discrimination occurs where a condition of employment or access to services applies to all people in the same way, but is harder for certain people to comply with for reasons related to a an attribute protected under discrimination law. Indirect discrimination is prohibited under the Discrimination Act but is hard to identify and has become increasingly difficult to prove. Past discrimination can result in entrenched disadvantage so great that those people most in need of protection fall outside the ambit of discrimination law. 'Mainstreaming' equality overcomes many of the flaws associated with the reactive, complaints-led model by placing equality considerations at the centre of all policies and decision-making by duty-bearers. An equality duty based on a mainstreaming model is recommended for the ACT. Part 2: Positive duties throughout Australia and the world A number of jurisdictions have already included or propose to include positive duties in their discrimination legislation. Almost all of the provisions considered create a two-part duty requiring the elimination of discrimination and promotion of equality. Most adopt a similar mainstreaming framework, requiring duty-bearers to develop, implement, report on and commit to ongoing revision of compulsory equality plans or voluntary a~tion plans. Those plans are typically based on consultation with protected groups and analysis of the equality impacts of existing policies. The plans set objectives and establish standards against which progress can be tested. Patterns in enforcement measures have also emerged, revealing a degree of consensus as to how positive duties should be framed, what they should involve and how they should be enforced. Many duties only apply in an employment context but more recent legislation extends further. Slight differences in duties allow the ACT to choose the most successful elements from each: The Canadian and NT Acts expand the requirement to 'accommodate' needs, traditionally used in disability discrimination legislation, to create a more general positive duty. WA imposes a positive duty through policy rather than legislation. Northern Ireland imposes an obligation to promote 'good relations' between particular groups. Welsh legislation imposes a duty on its National Assembly and creates a right to judicial review. South Africa's PEPUDA imposes duties on all its citizens. The UK's GED, OED and RED create separate obligations but a recent review has recommended that they be combined to 'declutter' the law. As the only other jurisdiction in Australia with a bill of rights, Vic toria's proposed Equality Act provides a useful example for the ACT. Part 3: A positive duty for the ACT Discrimination Act The final stage of the report recommends a range of options and a preferred model for a positive duty in the ACT. To be effective and minimise potential administrative burdens, any positive duty added to the Discrimination Act must be suited to the needs, existing institutions and policies of the Territory. Recent amendments to the HRA make it unlawful for public authorities to act 'in a way that is incompatible with human rights '. Public authorities are also required to submit annual reports on measures taken in relation to the HRA, multiculturalism, women, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. These obligations are similar to those that might be imposed by a positive duty and could be modified and. expanded to cover private entities and form the basis for a duty under the Discrimination Act. Recommendations for the form that duty might take are listed on the following page. Conclusion As the first jurisdiction in Australia to adopt a bill of rights, the ACT has a proud history at the forefront of human rights in this country. Although equality duties are a relatively recent development in discrimination law, their enactment in an increasing number of jurisdictions demonstrates a clear momentum toward the establishment of positive duties as a standard element of discrimination legislation. The ACT is ready to take this next step toward achieving substantive equality within our community; without a positive duty, we risk being left behind and unable to provide the protections necessary to overcome entrenched disadvantage and guarantee equality for all.

Why does society take the death on the job of some people more seriously than that of others? The deaths of astronauts and soldiers are greeted with great concern by opinion leaders who vow that they will not to be tolerated, but the deaths of day laborers and other blue‐collar workers seem to be accepted as an inevitable act of nature. This double standard of death is reinforced by the bifurcated way that the mass media frames the issue. The labor movement and the safety and health community must confront this problem head‐on and develop an educational strategy to rectify the distorted idea that some lives are more valuable than others.

AbstractOnline communication can often seem different to offline talk. Structural features of social media sites can shape the things we do with words. In this paper, I argue that the practice of 'quote-tweeting' can cause a single utterance that originally performed just one speech act to later perform several different speech acts. This describes a new type of illocutionary pluralism—the view that a single utterance can perform multiple illocutionary acts. Not only is this type more plural than others (if one utterance can acquire many kinds of illocutionary force), but it also shows how illocutionary forces can be accumulated over time. This is not limited to online utterances—some offline contexts are similarly structured, and so offline utterances can also come to perform many different speech acts.