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‘Important but sad point’: Human rights lawyers call on government to implement new LGBTQI+ recommendations
Lawyers with a human rights legal organisation have called on the government to adopt all recommendations addressed at gay and transgender hate crimes, which could include a new national judicial commission of inquiry.
Naomi Neilson
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) has responded to reports that the standing committee on social issues will be handed down a final report into gay and transgender hate crimes between 1970 and 2010 with a call for the potential recommendations to be implemented “without delay”.
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President Kerry Weste said the final report, expected to be tabled in May, would “mark an important but sad point in the LGBTQI+ community’s journey towards truth and justice”. She added that for too long, the community has suffered “brutal and violent” human rights violations but has not benefited from appropriate responses.
“If, as reported, the final report rightly recommends a judicial commission of inquiry with full investigative powers to look into the responses of the NSW justice system during the 1970s, 80s, 90s and 2000s, ALHR will be fully supportive of this initial move to correct a time when gays, lesbians, transgender [and people of other non-binary genders] were targeted for kills, bashings and robberies,” Ms Weste said.
Co-chair of ALHR’s LGBT committee, Georgia Burke, mirrored this with a hope the final report will serve to establish a “long overdue” framework and would give the community well-deserved, internationally recognised human rights before the law.
“Human rights law also imposes an obligation on countries to provide remedies and reparation for the victims of human rights violations. But our community has not had such protections and, even now, we remain vulnerable to hate speech, vilification and violence,” Ms Burke commented.
“This final report into gay and transgender hate crimes in NSW needs to send a powerful message to the LGBTQI+ community that our government is listening.”
