ROYAL COMMISSION Into Police Shootings In QLD

Australia New Zealand Lived Experience Advisory Council for Police-Related Deaths (ANZLEAC4PRD) - SUBMISSION Pt.1 to the;

Queensland Department of Justice Consultation on Court and Tribunal Users with Disability - Have Your Say Consultation 

1. Introduction

ANZLEAC4PRD is a peer led advisory body comprised of families directly affected by deaths following police contact. Its work sits where lived experience meets legal process, with a clear focus on prevention.

For these families, engagement with courts and tribunals does not arise in ordinary circumstances. It follows sudden and violent loss. In that setting, trauma is not peripheral. It is disabling. It affects memory, comprehension, communication, endurance and decision making. In functional terms, many individuals fall within any sensible understanding of psychosocial disability.

This submission addresses structural features of the system that, in operation, cause harm, reduce dignity and restrict access to justice. The difficulty is not always overt exclusion. More often it is indirect. Rules, administrative settings and procedural assumptions proceed on the basis of a person who is calm, resourced and capable of sustained engagement. That is not the position of families in this cohort. The system, as presently configured, excludes them in practice. 

2. The ePetition Issue

Queensland parliamentary petition rules exclude bereaved parents from participating in petitions concerning the deaths of their own children where those deaths occurred in Queensland, but the parents reside outside the State. 

Participation is limited to electors within Queensland divisions. That formulation is both legally imprecise and substantively exclusionary.

There is no separate legal category of “citizen of Queensland.” Citizenship is governed by Commonwealth law under the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth). What is being described, in substance, is residence. The terminology obscures that position and creates an artificial barrier. 

In operation, the rules exclude parents and immediate family members of persons fatally shot by Queensland police where those families reside interstate or overseas. ANZLEAC4PRD is aware of multiple such parents who will be prevented from signing an upcoming Parliamentary ePetition calling for a Royal Commission into police shootings in Queensland. 

That outcome does not sit comfortably with how the law ordinarily recognises standing and interest.

In every other part of the system, when a person dies, the law turns to their next of kin. Parents are not incidental participants. They are, as a matter of routine, often the legal representatives of the deceased. They administer estates, instruct lawyers, engage with coronial processes and, where necessary, carry forward the legal interests of the person who has died.

The position is no different where the deceased was temporarily in Queensland, whether for work, travel or otherwise. The connection to Queensland is established by the fact of residence at the time of death and, more importantly, by the exercise of State power in that jurisdiction.

The deceased has, in a very real sense, a legal and civic connection to Queensland. Their voice does not disappear on death. It is carried, as the law has always recognised, through their next of kin.

To exclude those persons from participating in a petition directed to the systemic circumstances of that death is to sever that recognised legal connection. It substitutes a rigid residency test for a well understood principle of representation.

This is not an administrative inconvenience. It is a failure to recognise who, in law and in practice, speaks for the deceased.

On any orthodox view, that outcome is difficult to reconcile with:

equal recognition before the law,
meaningful participation in public life, and
the obligation to avoid indirect exclusion of trauma affected persons from justice processes.
The defect is narrow. The consequence is not.

Further;

Privacy, Public Safety and Participation – Refined Position

Queensland does not have a single standalone privacy statute equivalent to the Commonwealth regime. Privacy is governed principally by the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld), supported by the Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld).

The Information Privacy Act regulates how public sector agencies collect, use and disclose personal information. It requires that:

personal information be collected only where necessary,
disclosure be confined to the purpose for which it was obtained, and
reasonable steps be taken to protect individuals from misuse, loss or unauthorised disclosure.
Against that framework, the routine publication of petitioners’ names and residential details raises a clear question of compliance. Where public disclosure is not strictly necessary to achieve the purpose of the petition process, or where less intrusive alternatives are available, the practice is open to challenge as disproportionate and inconsistent with contemporary privacy principles.

Privacy and Public Safety Concerns

The current model gives rise to three practical and legal concerns.

First, it operates as a barrier to participation.
Many individuals will not engage in a petition process if participation requires public disclosure of their home address. The effect is to limit access to democratic processes.

Second, it creates a foreseeable risk to personal safety.
That risk is heightened in matters involving police conduct, domestic and family violence, or other sensitive issues where identification may expose individuals to harm, intimidation or unwanted contact.

Third, the level of disclosure is not necessary.
The integrity of a petition can be maintained through identity verification without public exposure of residential information. Less intrusive means are readily available.

4. Legal Characterisation

These settings sit uneasily with:

the right to privacy and participation in public life under the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld), and
the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld), where a requirement that deters participation may amount to indirect discrimination, particularly for trauma impacted groups. 
In practical terms, the framework does two things at once. It deters participation through unnecessary disclosure, and it exposes those who do participate to avoidable risk. Neither outcome is necessary to preserve the integrity of the process.

5. Practical Burden

While post office boxes are permitted, they impose an additional cost, typically in the order of $164 to $170 per year. That is not a neutral safeguard. It is a financial barrier placed in front of participation