A socio-legal lens on the Victorian Charter: Revealing its role as a promoter of social change

The influence of a bill of rights is usually measured by the extent to which it provides legal remedies. This article argues that the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities' influence over Victorian public policy making can be more comprehensively assessed by applying a socio-legal lens. A socio-legal analysis, focusing upon the Charter's application at the level of policy implementation, ascribes an equally influential role to the dialogical design of the Charter and its role as a facilitator of community advocacy. The article will discuss how these design and functional elements of the Charter help us to understand the Charter's potential to promote social change, as illustrated by a number of cases of community advocacy.