The HIV/AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) works to provide free and comprehensive legal assistance to people in Australia with HIV or hepatitis related legal matters and have been offering these services for nearly 28 years. HALC also tackles severe stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and Hepatitis by undertaking community legal education and law reform activites in areas relating to HIV and hepatitis. Our dedicated team of 6 solicitors and amazing volunteers deliver around 19,000 hours of legal support helping over 1,000 clients each year. In 2020/21, HALC provided 500 counts of legal advice and represented clients in over 400 court, tribunal and other representation cases.

A lot of this work is not funded by the Government, but is funded by generous dontations from members of the community who understand the improtance of access to justice.

Your donation will enable us to continue to help vulnerable people living with HIV.

Donations to HALC will enable us to continue to assist vulnerable people living with HIV including:

• a donation of $40 would cover the cost of a protection visa application for an asylum seeker with HIV and/or who identify as LGBTI
• a donation of $100 would help to train our volunteer solicitors and law students to allow HALC to continue to deliver a high volume of work 
• a donation of $250 would help to cover the costs of a HALC solicitor preparing a discrimination complaint on behalf of a client who has been discriminated at work or by a service provider due to their HIV status
• a donation of $500 would cover the cost of one of our solicitors delivering a legal education seminar to health care workers, government agencies and the wider community on legal issues facing people living with HIV
• a donation of $1000 or more would help to cover the cost of a barrister representing our client in the Federal Court of Australia where our client’s visa has been refused due to their HIV status

HIV Stigma and discrimination remains a fact of life in Australia today and HALC's work aims to tackle and eliminate the negative impact of discrimination and stigma faced by people living with HIV. Legal and human rights issues faced by people living with HIV can often create barriers which affect people's health seeking behaviours and detrimentaly impact health outcomes. HALC continues to assist people living with HIV by promoting equality before the law to address the legal barriers that effect people's legal seeking behaviours and to create an enabling environment for people living with HIV. 

Here are some examples of the HIV-related legal matters that we deal with on a day to day basis:

• helping David to keep his job as a laboratory technician - his employer wanted to fire him when he found out he had HIV;
• helping to reunite spouses, families, parents and children, by assisting people to navigate the complex migration laws that affect migrants living with HIV;
• representing asylum seekers with HIV and/or who identify as LGBTI with applications for refugee status in Australia;
• negotiating a successful outcome for Suzie, who was refused insurance by an insurer on the basis of her HIV status.

We also don't shy away from running test cases that have a wider impact on the legal playing field, for example:

• a successful appeal to the High Court of Australia in a case establishing when a person can be said to have intended an outcome from their conduct;
• a number of cases challenging major insurers' discriminatory policies which allow them to refuse to provide insurance cover to people living with HIV;
• a number of court cases challenging unlawful decisions of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection.

HALCs work is not limited to individual casework - we produce printed resources, contribute to the reform of laws that affect people living with HIV and run regular workshops for healthcare and legal professionals, university students and the wider community about HIV and the law.

We are supported by a dedicated team of remarkable volunteers who allow us to assist twice as many people as we would otherwise be able to. Our volunteers are recent law graduates, law students, and qualified solicitors and barristers, all of whom give up their time to help people with HIV.

Your donation, no matter how small, will help make a difference and allow HALC to continue our important work.

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!