Updates and latest news

Professor Philip Alston delivered a scathing indictment of Australia’s recent legislative response to perceived security issues. Titled “Could Australia really become a police state?” the speech detailed the striking similarities between the Federal Government’s recent swathe of security measures and the activities of totalitarian governments throughout modern history.

A feature article in the most recent Law Institute Journal, In Search of Certainty, examines the issues surrounding the new Victoria Police Act and its implications for police accountability in Victoria.

Two young men from Flemington, Daniel Haile Michael and Maki Issa have been shortlisted for the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Young People’s Human Rights Medal for their work against racial profiling.

A Federal Senator has made a strong call for an independent body to investigate and prosecute cases of misconduct by police in Victoria.   In a speech to Federal Senate on Tuesday 30th September, Senator Gavin Marshall (Victoria—Deputy President of the Senate and Chair of Committees) welcomed the compensation recently awarded to Ms Corinna Horvath who was brutally assaulted...

Corrinna Horvath has recieved a welcome and a significant compensation from the State of Victoria along with an apology from Chief Commissioner Ken Lay.

A death we need to learn from Findings from the long running inquest into the death of a young Ethiopian-Australian man, Michael Atakelt. who was found dead in the Maribyrnong River in 2011 were handed down on Thursday 28th August, 2014. Michael’s body was found floating near the Raleigh Rd, Maribyrnong pontoon on July 7, 2011.  Issues had been...

When it comes to police violence and misconduct Victoria’s laws protect police, not its citizens. The new Victoria Police Act 2013, which came into force in July, may already need to be amended due to a recent United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) decision.

After decades of public controversy, the British Government has launched a new scheme to monitor and hold police stop and search practices to account.   In a move that could be replicated by Victoria Police in Australia, all police forces in England and Wales have agreed to adopt a new government code of conduct on the use of their...

Thirteen Victorian and Australian legal, human rights and civil society organisations have today called for a substantive response by the State of Victoria to the recent findings of the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the long-running case of Victorian woman, Corinna Horvath.

The death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island on November 19, 2004 and the protests that followed,  are tragic and clear demonstrations of the need for police accountability. Following Doomadgee’s death, the Attorney General indicted Senior Sargent Chris Hurley for a criminal trial. This was the first time action of this kind had been taken by the...

We continue to monitor and engage with the roll out of the commitments made by Victoria Police in the Equality is Not the Same report and we want to keep you up to date.

The Australian Lawyers Alliance’s highly regarded Victorian Civil Justice Award 2014 has been awarded to the Flemington and Kensington Community Legal Centre, in recognition of its outstanding work representing all the way to the United Nations, a young Victorian woman, Corinna Horvath, who was subjected to police brutality. Corinna Horvath was brutally assaulted by a group of police during a raid on...

A powerful condemnation of the failure of Victoria’s laws to provide adequate remedies to victims of police violence has been delivered by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in the recent and long awaited decision of Horvath v Australia (‘Horvath’).

In a damning decision, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has found that remedying police violence requires Victoria to take steps it has shirked up to this point.

Exciting moves are afoot to form a community-based ‘Racial Profiling Monitoring Project’ to monitor the outcomes of the Vicpol Equality Report

In a recent article in the Melbourne Age, ‘African youth in New Year’s brawl’ Salvation Army Major Brendan Nottle was quoted as saying:

“Rather than take the approach that we’re not going to talk about this for fear of being branded racist, or saying, ‘why are these young people here, why don’t they integrate’, we actually need to say this…

Police killings are big news, but the investigations that follow have unearthed a culture of violence without accountability. The solution is civilian investigators – but there are a few myths that need to be dispelled first, writes Tamar Hopkins

In February 2013, six years after the case began, on the eve of an eightweek trial and as Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay was expected to give evidence, it was settled.