2025/01/01 by Joel Harrison · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Religious Freedom and Discrimination #Religious Education and Schools #Discrimination and Equality Law
paper · pdf · doi:10.55803/g650h
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/11/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
This article argues that the framework of ‘maximising’ or, equally, ‘balancing’ rights (a) transforms groups into vehicles for individual interests, against understanding the group as having a ‘real life’; (b) requires a hierarchy of goods or claims beyond the abstraction of maximising in principle equal rights in order to be comprehensible; and (c) precipitates an increasing shift to the courts or commissions as decision-makers in contrast to the people determining the scope of a rights claim through legislative enactment. These arguments are developed through an analysis of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s December 2023 report into exceptions to anti-discrimination laws for religious educational institutions, arguing against its adoption of a ‘maximisation’ framework and its scepticism towards using statutory exceptions.