What are 'structural protections?'

[TAP94]

Hi everyone,
Can some please help: I've had a mind blank and don't know what all of the structural protections are, the ones we should know? I cannot work out whether it is the three principles of our parliamentary system, express rights, implied right, the senate as a house of review, powers of the crown???!
Thanks guys, any help will do:)

[brenden]

Structural Protections refer to rights, other than the five express and implied right(s) than are indirectly protected by the nature (structure/s) of the constitution. So yes, this is referring to representative government, responsible government and the separation of powers. To give you an example, Roach V Electoral Commissioner (I think it was 2007) -> Roach won the right for prisoners that were imprisoned for less than three years to vote at elections (Howard the gronk had tried to pass legislation saying prisoners couldn't vote at all). There are no express rights saying people can vote. The implied right is not for voting. The right to vote however was protected by the structures of the constitution in that the principles of representative government states that parliament and Government should be elected by  the community. In prisoners serving less than three years time, they would be outside at some point of the Government's time of running things so allowing them not to vote would contravene the Const.
Hope that makes sense lol. Probs a bit rusty on my Legal.

[KristyDanielle]

Hi there,

The structural protection of rights in Australia refers to the structure and text of the Commonwealth Constitution providing a mechanism for the indirect protection of rights.

Structural protection of rights helps prevent the abuse of power. For instance, the Constitution provides for responsible government, representative government and the separation of powers. These three constitutional principles essentially underlie our system of government. They provide checks and balances so no one body has absolute power or abuses power. Thereby, they indirectly protect human rights (not explicitely 'entrenched' as express rights are).

Hope this makes sense and I hope it helps you!