Australia to miss deadline to implement anti-torture protocols
Australia faces a looming international deadline to fully implement the UN’s anti-torture protocol - by 20 January 2023 - but Australian governments are not on track to meet this deadline.
In 2017 Australia ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), requiring every state and territory to have designated a ‘National Preventive Mechanism’ to carry out inspections and oversight of police and prison cells (as well as other places of detention) to protect against torture, mistreatment, abuse and systemic failings. Despite having 5 years and multiple deadlines, NSW, Victoria and Qld have not implemented their mechanisms.
Change the Record, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS), and the Human Rights Law Centre are calling for the Albanese Government to work with states and urgently commit to properly funding effective and independent oversight of all places of detention across Australia.
Quotes from Cheryl Axleby, Co-Chair of Change the Record
“We have been calling on governments for decades to take the deaths, mistreatment and abuse of our people in custody seriously. Implementing OPCAT to ensure there is true independent oversight and accountability of police and prisons is a critical step towards ending the discriminatory laws, policies and practices that cause our people to die behind bars.
“It’s been over thirty years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and governments are failing to end the mass incarceration of our people. The Human Rights Watch World Report released last week acknowledges that First Nations people continue to be overrepresented in the criminal legal system and face dehumanising, dangerous and torturous conditions in custody. At least 17 First Nations people died in custody in 2022. Change the Record remains deeply concerned about the lack of transparency and accountability surrounding Black deaths in custody.
“If governments are serious about ending the mass imprisonment of our people and meeting their commitments under Closing the Gap, then they must take urgent action to implement OPCAT and end the discriminatory practices that drive our people behind bars. We need genuine, independent oversight of police and prisons everywhere, and we need it now.”
Quotes from Jamie McConnachie, Executive Officer at the NATSILS
“We are in a pivotal moment in history and there is potential to go beyond the empty gestures of the past. We call upon this Australian Government to abolish policies and procedures that acquiesce to the inhumane treatment of those in prison and closed environments. It is a fundamental issue of rights and freedoms. There must be a political will nationally and internationally to avoid what is senseless and preventable.”
Quotes from Caitlin Reiger, CEO at the Human Rights Law Centre
“Australia is in the midst of a mass imprisonment crisis where human rights abuses are allowed to thrive behind bars. Right now, people with disabilities are held in extended solitary confinement, survivors of abuse are routinely strip searched and children as young as 10 years old are caged in prison cells.
“Time is long overdue for greater oversight and transparency of places of detention across Australia. Despite having years to comply with what Australia agreed to do under the UN’s anti-torture protocol OPCAT, many states have failed repeatedly to fully implement anti-torture mechanisms by the final January 2023 deadline.
"All governments must urgently establish and resource independent monitoring and oversight of prisons, police cells and all places of detention. The Albanese government must show national leadership on ending torture and deaths in custody, and urgently commit to properly and jointly funding independent oversight of places of detention. We must shine a light on human rights abuses wherever they occur and end the use of cruel and degrading practices – like routine strip searching and solitary confinement – once and for all.”
Background
The deadline to implement the United Nations’ anti-torture protocol - OPCAT - and have designated National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) in each state and territory is Friday 20 January 2023.
Every state and territory has responsibility within its jurisdiction to nominate, and legislate to enact, NPMs to oversee police and prison cells, police vehicles, youth justice facilities and other places of detention within their state or territory. While Tasmania, Northern Territory, ACT, South Australia and Western Australia have implemented interim or final measures to monitor conditions in detention, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have not. Victoria lags well behind other states and territories in not establishing an independent oversight body that could prevent human rights abuses in prisons.
Australia has recently come under fire for its failure to comply with its obligations under UN anti-torture treaties. In October the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture was forced to suspend their visit to Australia, after their team of independent experts were denied access to places of detention in NSW and mental health wards in Queensland. In November, Australia was formally questioned by the United Nations anti-torture watchdog who expressed “serious concern” with Australia’s failure to establish independant monitoring mechanisms across all jurisdictions.
In August last year, it was uncovered that NSW Police had conducted hundreds of strip-searches on children as young as 13. In November, Four Corners exposed the mistreatment of children as young as 10 which is rife in youth prisons like WA’s Banksia Hill.
Media Contacts: Thomas Feng, Media and Communications Manager, Human Rights Law Centre, 0431 285 275, thomas.feng@hrlc.org.au