The ACT government is exploring rapid closure powers to disrupt illegal tobacco sales, but has not yet committed to introducing such laws. Health Minister Marisa Paterson said on Wednesday the government needed to first consider human rights implications and look at evidence from other jurisdictions.
"We will work through human rights considerations in the ACT and we will also understand the need for those laws and look at the evidence if those laws have been effective in other jurisdictions. So we're taking all this into consideration at the moment," Dr Paterson said.
Tess Rooney, a lecturer at the University of Canberra's law school, said the ACT's Human Rights Act was not a legal barrier to tougher action on illegal tobacco sales. "Nobody's suggesting that there is a right to sell illegal tobacco. Under the ACT Human Rights Act, individuals do retain rights, even when they're suspected of a crime," Ms Rooney said.
She noted that rights potentially engaged include fair hearing rights, the presumption of innocence, privacy, and the right to work, though she said the last would be difficult to draw a link. Closing premises could affect fair hearing rules, she said, as affected individuals must be able to challenge the evidence and obtain a fair determination by an independent court or tribunal, as occurs under Queensland laws.
Queensland, which has similar human rights laws to the ACT, introduced tough penalties on illegal tobacco sellers late last year. The state has been praised by the federal government and public health experts for disrupting the tobacco black market, though Ms Rooney cautioned that new offences reversing the burden of proof could raise human rights concerns around the presumption of innocence. She noted that an administrative closure is not automatically a criminal punishment.