In Australia, the term mandatory detention describes the legislation of the Australian government to detain all persons entering the country or remaining in the country without a valid visa, including children. It is most notoriously used for refugees seeking asylum in Australia. Immigration detainees are incracerated in one of the Australian immigration detention facilities on the Australian mainland, or on Manus Island or Nauru as part of the Pacific Solution. The detention facilities are run by a private prison company, Global Solutions Limited. Mandatory detention remains a very controversial aspect of Australian immigration policy. Detainee is neutral term used to indicate people held by a government, such as those it does not classify and treat as either prisoners of war or suspects in criminal cases. ... An entry visa valid in all Schengen treaty countries Visas for Laos, Thailand, and Sri Lanka A visa (short for the Latin carta visa, lit. ... Australian immigration detention facilities comprise a number of different facilities throughout Australia and the Pacific Ocean. ... Manus Island is part of Manus Province in Papua New Guinea and is the largest island of the Admiralty Islands. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Mandatory detention in Australia. ... Australian immigration has a checkered history. ...

History of mandatory detention

Mandatory detention laws were introduced in Australia with bi-partisan support in 1992. The legislation was proposed as a result of an influx of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cambodian asylum seekers over the previous few years. The legislation specifically disallowed judicial review, but did impose a 273 day limit on detention. Judicial review is the power of a court to review a law or an official act of a government employee or agent for constitutionality or for the violation of basic principles of justice. ...

In 1994, new legislation broadened the application of mandatory detention and removed the 273 day limit. This extension laid the foundation for indefinite detention.

Many of those detained in Australia's detention centres between 1999-2006 have been asylum seekers from Iraq and Afghanistan who sought protection or asylum under Australia's obligations to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Over 80 percent of these were found to be refugees by the Immigration Department, with decisions taking up to 8 months or more. Few asylum seekers were able to be repatriated. The term asylum can mean: a psychiatric hospital political asylum a 1985 album named Asylum by KISS a sociology book by Erving Goffman studying total institutions A band from Preston, http://www. ... The United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees is an international convention that defines who is a refugee, and sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum. ...

On 6 August 2004, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the case of Behrooz V Secretary Of The Department Of Immigration And Multicultural And Indigenous Affairs and held that the harsh conditions of detention did not lead detention to become unlawful. Thus inhumane conditions of detention cannot excuse escape from administrative detention for non-citizens who have arrived in Australia without authorisation. On the same day, the High Court also handed down its decision in Al Kateb v Godwin which hald that unsuccessful asylum seekers who could not be removed to another country, despite their wish to leave Australia, could continue to be held in immigration detention indefinitely. High Court entrance The High Court of Australia is the final court of appeal in Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy. ...

Mandatory detention of asylum seekers was popular with the Australian electorate and helped John Howard win the 2001 federal election. While the Australian Labor Party supported the policy from Opposition, in June 2005 a small backbench revolt in Howard's own party led by Petro Georgiou and Judith Moylan resulted in some concessions to humanitarian concerns, including the promised release of long term detainees and review of future cases by an ombudsman. For other uses, see John Howard (disambiguation). ... Petro Georgiou Petro Georgiou (born 30 November 1947), Australian politician, has been a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives since November 1994, representing the Division of Kooyong, Victoria. ... Hon Judith Moylan Judith Eleanor Judi Moylan (born 24 February 1944), Australian politician, has been a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives since March 1993, representing the Division of Pearce, Western Australia. ...

Australia's longest serving detainee Peter Qasim was detained for over 7 years without charge or trial before being released in 2005. From September 2001, the vast majority of asylum seekers who were eventually found to be refugees were issued with a temporary protection visa which forms a parallel plank of the government's refugee policy. Peter Qasim is currently the longest-serving detainee within the Australian immigration detention system, having resided there for over seven years as of 2005. ... A temporary protection visa (TPV) is a visa issued by the Australian government to persons who have been recognised as refugees fleeing persecution. ...

Effect of mandatory detention on detainees

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) held an inquiry into mandatory detention of children who arrived without a visa over the period 1999-2002. The inquiry found that children detained for long periods of time were at a high risk of suffering mental illness. Mental health professionals had repeatedly recommended that children and their parents be removed from immigration detention. The inquiry found that the Australian governments refusal to implement these recommendations amounted to “..cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of those children in detention”. [1] The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) is a national independent statutory body of the Australian government. ...

The inquiry also found that many basic rights outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child were denied to children living in immigration detention. Bold textThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international convention setting out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. ...

Such effects became especially prominent at the Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre, where mass violence repeatedly occurred. The Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre (IRPC) was an Australian immigration detention facility near the village of Woomera in South Australia. ... Violence refers to acts —typically connotative with aggressive and criminal behaviour —which intend to cause or is causing of injury to persons, animals, or (in limited cases) property. ...

Criticism

In October 2001, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Australian Prime Minister John Howard regarding new legislation, The Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration Zone) (Consequential Provisions) Act 2001. The new act further strengthened the practise of mandatory detention, allowing for indefinite detention of unauthorised arrivals. The letter said: Human Rights Watch is a U.S.-based international human rights non-governmental organization located in New York City, USA, that conducts advocacy and research on human rights issues. ... For other uses, see John Howard (disambiguation). ...

The recent legislation seriously contravenes Australia’s obligations to non-citizens, refugees and asylum seekers under international human rights and refugee law. As provided for in Article 2 of the ICCPR, the obligation to respect and ensure rights to all persons, including all non-citizens, applies throughout Australia’s territory and to all persons subject to Australia’s jurisdiction. We urge Australia, as we have already urged the U.S. government in similar circumstances, to amend its new legislation or at a minimum to implement it in a manner that fully upholds fundamental norms of international human rights and refugee law. [2]

The system of mandatory detention, while popular with a majority of voters, has been the subject of passionate controversy. Opposition to the system on humanitarian grounds came from a range of religious, community and political groups including the National Council of Churches, Amnesty International, Australian Democrats, Australian Greens and Rural Australians for Refugees to name a few. Among the intellectual opponents of the system has been Professor Robert Manne, whose Quarterly Essay "Sending Them Home: Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference" (2004) called for an end to both mandatory detention and the temporary protection visa system on humanitarian grounds. Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is an international, non-governmental organization with the stated purpose of promoting all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards. ... The Australian Democrats (in regular parlance, just the Democrats), is an Australian social liberal party formed in 1977 from the earlier Australia Party by Don Chipp, who left the Liberal Party of Australia to do so. ... The Australian Greens, commonly ‘The Greens’, is the national Greens party in Australia. ... Robert Manne is a professor of politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia and one of Australias foremost public intellectuals. ... A temporary protection visa (TPV) is a visa issued by the Australian government to persons who have been recognised as refugees fleeing persecution. ...

Throughout the controversy, Prime Minister John Howard and successive immigration ministers maintained that their actions were justified in the interests of protecting Australias borders and ensuring that immigration law was enforced. A 2004 Liberal Party election policy document stated:

The Coalition Government's tough stance on people smuggling stems from the core belief that Australia has the right to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. Deterrence has been achieved through excision, boat returns, offshore processing and mandatory detention. [3]

Excision means to remove as if by cutting. It can be a euphemism for Female circumcision. ...

Wrongful detention

In February 2005, it was revealed that a mentally ill Australian permanent resident, Cornelia Rau, had been held in detention as an unauthorised immigrant for ten months. In May, it was revealed that a total of 33 cases of people being wrongfully detained under the Migration Act were known, including one case of a women forcibly deported and subsequently missing. As of May, it was not known how many actually spent time in an immigration detention facility. By late May, over 200 cases of possible wrongful immigration detention had been referred to the Palmer Inquiry. In October 2005, the Commonwealth Ombudsman revealed that more than half of those cases were held for a week or less and 23 people were held for more than a year and two of them were detained for more than five years [4]. 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Cornelia Rau at a press conference at Glenside Hospital Cornelia Rau was unlawfully detained for a period of ten months as part of the Australian Governments mandatory detention program. ...

References

• ABC News Online. Secrecy blamed for Rau's ordeal. URL accessed on May 3, 2005.
• The Age. Govt says 33 have been wrongly detained. URL accessed on May 3, 2005.
• The Sydney Morning Herald. Wrongful detention: 200 cases go to inquiry. URL accessed on June 8, 2005.

May 3 is the 123rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (124th in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 3 is the 123rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (124th in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... June 8 is the 159th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (160th in leap years), with 206 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• HREOC Report – A Last Resort? - Australia's Immigration Detention Policy and Practice

See also

• Mandatory sentencing