Commission fatally compromised: Brandis

Attorney-General George Brandis fears the political impartiality of the human rights watchdog has been "fatally compromised" by the political partisanship of its president.

Senator Brandis says he has lost confidence in Gillian Triggs following her explanation about the timing of a Australian Human Rights Commission inquiry into children in immigration detention.

"Whether deliberately or through a terrible error of judgment, Professor Triggs embarked on a course of conduct in 2013 as a result of which, the confidence of my side of politics had in her impartiality ... collapsed," he told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Tuesday.