The University of Queensland has launched a new Human Rights Case Law Project database with the help of the Research Computing Centre.
RCC Principal IT Web Applications Developer and Coordinator Jonathan Hadwen, who specialises in the Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, assisted the UQ Pro Bono Centre in creating a new database.
“It was great to be involved with a project that helps UQ students as well as the general public," said Mr Hadwen.
The Human Rights Case Law Project is a collection of all published cases that refer to the Queensland Human Rights Act of 2019 – currently, more than 1,000 cases. The previous database, almost six years old, had outgrown its original home on a UQ content management system (CMS), and RCC was happy to help.
One of the academic supervisors, Bridget Burton, Senior Lecturer - Clinical Educator at the UQ School of Law, said: "As the developer behind the database, Jonathan's expertise and hard work have been instrumental in bringing this project to life. Thanks to his contribution, more than five years of student pro bono work has been transformed into a practical and accessible resource that will support legal practitioners, researchers and the wider community."
RCC Director Jake Carroll said: “This initiative is important to me because it speaks to the broad mission of RCC in supporting our diverse communities. Equal access to information sources and the Digital Research Infrastructure that enables it should be a reality for everyone, and the Human Rights Case Law project is an example of equality and the importance of open data.”
All the information from the old database was ported to an instance of the Omeka S platform. The database is now searchable, and all the cases are linked by court, judges, and Human Rights Act section, making it much easier to navigate and update.
A large team of law student volunteers have worked on this project; reading, synthesising and summarising cases for inclusion in the database. The students undertook this work pro bono, to advance human rights in the community by improving understanding about human rights law.
Liisa Kuru volunteered with the project throughout her law degree, from 2021 to 2026, including serving as the project leader in 2025 and 2026. Ms Burton said this was “an exceptional commitment.”
Ms Kuru said: “I am excited for the value that our project will bring for practitioners and students, and I hope it will serve to develop the human rights jurisprudence in Queensland.”
The Human Rights Case Law Project is an initiative of the UQ School of Law and Caxton Legal Centre Inc.
