(This report covers the period January-December 1997)

The government moved to limit the effect of international human rights treaties. The UN Human Rights Committee found that Australia's policy of mandatory detention of asylum-seekers breached its obligations under international law. Ill-treatment by police was reported. An alarming rate of deaths in custody, particularly of Aboriginal people, raised concerns about possible ill-treatment.

Human rights issues were a major focus of public debate throughout the year. International human rights treaties, minority rights and the national human rights commission were attacked by politicians and influential individuals. While supporting the commission's international role, the government took steps to restrict its ability to fulfil its domestic functions, including a 43 per cent budget cut and plans for sweeping changes to its structure.

The Queensland State Government introduced legislation in March to ensure that all forms of torture were properly outlawed after a court found that no appropriate punishment existed for acts of torture which cause no bodily injury.

In April the Tasmania State Parliament repealed sections of the Criminal Code which allowed for up to 21 years' imprisonment for private homosexual acts between consenting male adults. The law had allowed for the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 to 1997)

Electoral legislation which had led to the imprisonment of Albert Langer, a prisoner of conscience, during the 1996 federal elections remained in place (see Amnesty International Report 1997).

In February Australia's refusal to accept a binding clause on respect for "basic human rights as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" caused the breakdown of negotiations with the European Union on a "Framework Agreement" (see Amnesty International Report 1997). Instead, both parties signed a non-binding political declaration affirming their commitment to human rights.

Draft legislation introduced in June would, if enacted, allow officials to disregard human rights treaties without fear of legal consequences. The Administrative Decisions (Effect of International Instruments) Bill 1997, first proposed in 1995, aimed to prevent a domestic challenge to an administrative decision on the basis that it violated a human rights treaty by which Australia was bound. The government argued that an Australian High Court decision in 1995 (known as the "Teoh decision") interfered with the proper role of Parliament in implementing treaties. The High Court had found a "legitimate expectation" that human rights treaties ratified by Australia should be considered by officials, even when they were not incorporated into local law. A formal government statement in February sought to invalidate the High Court's decision, and a final vote on the draft law was due in 1998

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reviewed Australia's first report under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Committee expressed as its principal concern that in Australia the Convention does not give rise to legitimate expectations that administrative decisions conform with its provisions and that citizens have no right to bring a complaint in local courts on the basis of the Convention. The Committee recommended law reform initiatives to benefit children, and expressed concern about "the unjustified, disproportionately high percentage of Aboriginal children in the juvenile justice system" and the detention of child asylum-seekers

People arriving in Australia without proper documentation, including those seeking asylum, continued to face mandatory detention while their claim was assessed, in clear violation of international human rights standards. Despite public perceptions, fuelled by politicians, that thousands of refugees were trying to enter Australia illegally, only 346 "boat people" arrived in Australia during the year, of whom 267 were returned, mostly within weeks

In April the UN Human Rights Committee stated that Australia had breached the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by arbitrarily detaining a Cambodian asylum-seeker. He was detained for more than four years while pursuing his asylum claim and was denied the right to have his detention reviewed in court

In October the Australian Senate passed a resolution asking the government to respond to the Committee, to report on possible refugee policy changes to meet international human rights standards and to examine alternatives to the mandatory detention of asylum-seekers. In December the government rejected the Committee's views in a formal response and argued that such detention is not arbitrary because it is "lawful" under the Migration Act. In July, in an attempt to deter asylum-seekers from appealing against unsuccessful claims, the government introduced a fee of a$1,000 (us$740) for applicants whose claims were rejected both by immigration officials and the Refugee Review Tribunal

There were reports that most "boat people" in the main immigration detention centre at Port Hedland, some 4,000 kilometres from Sydney, were initially placed in incommunicado detention. They were not informed of their right to claim asylum, to see a lawyer or to contact the Australian human rights commission.

In March police officers in Ipswich, Queensland, assisted by visiting us military police, were filmed by security video camera as they punched and kicked several Aborigines who were being held by other officers. Eye-witnesses alleged that police and security guards initially refused to call an ambulance for an unconscious man who had convulsions after an officer had flung him violently to the ground, handcuffed him and left him lying on the footpath.

In May the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission reported on its national inquiry into the forced removal, under past government policies effective up to 1970, of tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families solely because of their race. The Commission found the policies had been "genocidal" and reported on the continuing effects of human rights abuses suffered by victims, including ill-treatment and restrictions on freedom of movement. The report stressed the link between the effects of the policies and current high rates of Aboriginal criminalization and deaths in custody. The government's response in December announced welfare and family reunion measures, but failed to comment on the Commission's findings that the policies had allowed for genocide, systematic racial discrimination and physical and sexual abuse of children.

At least 103 people died in custody or during police attempts to detain them, some of them in circumstances raising concern about lack of proper care amounting to ill-treatment. Of these at least 14 were Aborigines. Aborigines form two per cent of the population. In July ministers discussed the continuing high incidence of Aboriginal deaths in custody at a national summit meeting. Participants agreed on the need for action to address the problem, but failed to set binding targets. The Australian Institute of Crimino-logy reported in July that the combined rate of deaths in custody of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people had increased to the highest level ever recorded

In October a coroner found that conditions in a remote police cell on Bathurst Island "directly contributed" to the death of an Aboriginal man who was found hanging in the cell in May 1996. The coroner found that the filthy, unlit cell, in which points from which to hang oneself were easily accessible, "fell well short of and did not comply with the standards recommended by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report" (see Amnesty International Reports 1992 and 1993).

There were new developments in cases from previous years. In September the Victoria state Supreme Court overruled a 1996 inquest finding that Colleen Richman, a mentally disturbed Aboriginal woman shot by police in September 1994, had caused her own death. A police officer had repeatedly fired at her after she did not respond to calls to put down a hatchet. Although three out of four bullets hit her in the back, the coroner had accepted police claims that they had shot her in self-defence.

In September the newly formed Anti-Corruption Commission in Western Australia decided to reinvestigate the death of Stephen Wardle, who died in police custody in February 1988 (see Amnesty International Reports 1996 and 1997)

In April Amnesty International published a report on police ill-treatment in Ipswich (see above), Australia: Police brutality against Queensland Aborigines. The organization also wrote to the government of Queensland, expressing concern that excessive force had been used in at least three of seven arrests during the incident. In his response, the Queensland Police Minister initially promised a "full response in due course", but in a second letter he declined to comment because of ongoing legal proceedings and a Criminal Justice Commission investigation into the incident. The Commission had not completed its inquiry by the end of the year.

Amnesty International issued a report in June, Australia: Deaths in custody – how many more? expressing concern about deficiencies in the prison and police custody system and highlighting the risk of death for Aborigines in prisons. In response, the government described the report as an important basis for discussion but did not comment on its contents.

In August Amnesty International welcomed proposals on human rights promotion in Australia's first White Paper on foreign policy, but criticized the lack of commitment to international human rights treaties

In October the Foreign Minister dismissed an Amnesty International report, Ethnicity and nationality: refugees in Asia, mainly because of its comments on Australia's refusal to accept refugees from East Timor. The Minister's condemnation of Amnesty International prompted a Senate resolution which commended Amnesty International for its work and called on the Minister to address human rights violations in East Timor.

In December Amnesty International wrote to the Northern Territory authorities about a reported tacit acceptance by the government of cruel and inhuman punishment of Aboriginal people by other Aborigines under customary law.

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