No right to an independent investigation of police complaints
In Bare v Small [2013] VSC 129 (25 March 2013) the Supreme Court ruled that the right to protection from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in section 10(b) of Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (‘Charter’) does not include a right to an independent investigation of a complaint of such treatment. In a restrictive reading of the Charter’s obligations, Justice Williams also held that a decision of a public authority made in breach of the Charter’s obligation to act compatibly with and properly consider human rights, does not make the decision invalid or amount to jurisdictional error.