It sounds completely ridiculous, but in the only Australian state where human rights are at least to some extent protected, Victoria, nobody seems to have even thought of seeking those protections, and worse, the population of that state currently has the most severe restrictions in place, restrictions that fly in the face of human rights, under a government that can only be described as tyrannical.
The law which could potentially been used to fight the draconian measures in place is the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. The relevant section of the Act is extracted below. It states that “reasonable limits” can only be imposed when certain relevant factors “can be demonstrably justified.”
Surely the argument can be made, with everything that is now known about this allegedly new coronavirus, and about the lack of effectiveness of measures taken, that these measures are completely disproportional to the threat, and in fact are causing more harm than they are supposed to prevent.
Whether judges would have retained their common sense in this current climate of fear is, of course, another question altogether.
