Human Rights Law Centre | 28 Feb 2012
Australia has moved a step closer to ensuring independent monitoring, inspection and oversight of places of detention.
The Commonwealth Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, and the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, Craig Emerson, today tabled a National Interest Analysis on Australia’s ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.
The Optional Protocol is an international treaty which aims to prevent ill treatment and promote humane conditions by establishing systems for independent monitoring and inspection of all places of detention.
“It is not only in the interests of persons deprived of liberty, but also the broader community, that all places of detention – whether prisons, psychiatric hospitals, police cells or disability facilities – promote rehabilitation and reintegration. It is fundamental that all detainees are treated with basic dignity and respect. Independent inspections and oversight are critical in this regard,” said Human Rights Law Centre Executive Director, Phil Lynch.
At the national level, the Optional Protocol requires that countries establish what is known as a “national preventative mechanism”, or NPM. An NPM is an independent body with a mandate to conduct both announced and unannounced visits to places of detention, to make recommendations to prevent ill treatment and improve conditions, and to report publicly on its findings and views.
At the international level, the Optional Protocol establishes an independent committee of experts, the UN Sub-Committee on the Prevention of Torture, with a mandate to carry out country missions to monitor deprivations of liberty.
According to Mr Lynch, “The whole system is premised on the evidence and experience that external scrutiny of places of detention can prevent and redress torture and other forms of ill treatment. By making places of detention more open, transparent and accountable, it helps to ensure that persons deprived of liberty – whether people with psychiatric illness, prisoners, people with disability or asylum seekers – are treated with basic dignity and respect.”
Australia signed the Optional Protocol in May 2009. Since that time, progress on ratification and implementation has been slow, with wrangling between the states and the Commonwealth about who is to foot the modest bill for detention monitoring and oversight. According to Mr Lynch, “This is despite international evidence as to the very high social and economic costs of failing to prevent and redress ill-treatment.”
Mr Lynch said that, “Now that the NIA has been tabled, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments should all prioritise ratification and implementation of the Optional Protocol. Any further delay in the prevention of ill-treatment has intolerable social and economic costs and is simply not an option.”
Showing posts with label Nicola Roxon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicola Roxon. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Harsh penalties for boat crew 'target wrong people'
Jared Owens | The Australian | December 31, 2011
NINE Australian judges have now criticised laws imposing mandatory five-year jail terms on the crew of asylum-seeker boats, with the latest saying the harsh penalties target the wrong people, condemn their children to "extreme poverty" and have no deterrent effect.
Sentencing two impoverished Indonesian fishermen this month, Queensland Supreme Court judge Roslyn Atkinson said the laws were failing to catch the smuggling kingpins who move freely between Indonesian villages in search of more crew members to bribe on to the boats.
"Those people who employ men like you will just move to another village because they regard you as completely expendable, and people in small villages without newspapers or the means of modern communication are most unlikely to hear of a sentence imposed in an Australian court," Justice Atkinson said in Brisbane on December 2.
Since the policy was introduced under the Howard government in 2001, it has been criticised by at least nine judges in NSW, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Northern Territory Supreme Court judge Judith Kelly -- sentencing Edward Nafi, 58, in May -- said the five-year penalty for the offence was "completely out of kilter with sentences handed down in this court for offences of the same or higher maximum sentences involving far greater moral culpability".
Other judges to complain of the laws include Northern Territory Supreme Court Chief Justice Trevor Riley and judges of the same court, Dean Mildren and Peter Barr; West Australian District Court judge Mary Ann Yeats, NSW District Court judge Brian Knox and Queensland District Court acting judge Brad Farr.
But Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon yesterday backed mandatory sentencing, saying through a spokesman it was an effective deterrent when combined with other measures such as education campaigns.
When The Weekend Australian presented Ms Roxon's office with a parliamentary petition she tabled in 2001 denouncing mandatory sentencing in the NT and Western Australia as racist and insisting on greater discretion for judges, the spokesman said the Attorney-General was unavailable to comment.
Justice Atkinson said the convicted men, the cook and deckhand aboard a boat intercepted in March last year, had four children between them aged between 17 and three, who would "suffer dreadfully" without their fathers.
Jufri, 41, the cook, was the sole income-earner for his family of four, who live in an 18-square-metre hut with a dirt floor. His wife now works shelling crabs for 1.5 cents an hour.
The other man, Nasir, 42, has two children aged 17 and eight who now have no breadwinner. Nasir is skimping on essentials such as soap and toothpaste so he can send some of his $8 daily prison allowance back home.
"The serious offenders at whom (mandatory sentencing) must surely be aimed are those who profit from people-smuggling . . . rather than people like yourselves who are certain to be caught and who live in such impoverished circumstances that the small amount of money you would make from a journey such as this makes it worth taking the risk," Justice Atkinson said.
NINE Australian judges have now criticised laws imposing mandatory five-year jail terms on the crew of asylum-seeker boats, with the latest saying the harsh penalties target the wrong people, condemn their children to "extreme poverty" and have no deterrent effect.
Sentencing two impoverished Indonesian fishermen this month, Queensland Supreme Court judge Roslyn Atkinson said the laws were failing to catch the smuggling kingpins who move freely between Indonesian villages in search of more crew members to bribe on to the boats.
"Those people who employ men like you will just move to another village because they regard you as completely expendable, and people in small villages without newspapers or the means of modern communication are most unlikely to hear of a sentence imposed in an Australian court," Justice Atkinson said in Brisbane on December 2.
Since the policy was introduced under the Howard government in 2001, it has been criticised by at least nine judges in NSW, Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Northern Territory Supreme Court judge Judith Kelly -- sentencing Edward Nafi, 58, in May -- said the five-year penalty for the offence was "completely out of kilter with sentences handed down in this court for offences of the same or higher maximum sentences involving far greater moral culpability".
Other judges to complain of the laws include Northern Territory Supreme Court Chief Justice Trevor Riley and judges of the same court, Dean Mildren and Peter Barr; West Australian District Court judge Mary Ann Yeats, NSW District Court judge Brian Knox and Queensland District Court acting judge Brad Farr.
But Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon yesterday backed mandatory sentencing, saying through a spokesman it was an effective deterrent when combined with other measures such as education campaigns.
When The Weekend Australian presented Ms Roxon's office with a parliamentary petition she tabled in 2001 denouncing mandatory sentencing in the NT and Western Australia as racist and insisting on greater discretion for judges, the spokesman said the Attorney-General was unavailable to comment.
Justice Atkinson said the convicted men, the cook and deckhand aboard a boat intercepted in March last year, had four children between them aged between 17 and three, who would "suffer dreadfully" without their fathers.
Jufri, 41, the cook, was the sole income-earner for his family of four, who live in an 18-square-metre hut with a dirt floor. His wife now works shelling crabs for 1.5 cents an hour.
The other man, Nasir, 42, has two children aged 17 and eight who now have no breadwinner. Nasir is skimping on essentials such as soap and toothpaste so he can send some of his $8 daily prison allowance back home.
"The serious offenders at whom (mandatory sentencing) must surely be aimed are those who profit from people-smuggling . . . rather than people like yourselves who are certain to be caught and who live in such impoverished circumstances that the small amount of money you would make from a journey such as this makes it worth taking the risk," Justice Atkinson said.
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