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Submission to the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from
the Victorian Bar Council
Dear Dr. Ozdowski,
National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention
The Victorian Bar Council has been provided with the submission to the HREOC Enquiry into the mandatory detention of children that has been prepared by a group headed by Julian Burnside QC and called the Kids in Detention Story.
The Bar Council views with concern the facts and matters described in that submission.
The Bar Council condemns the extended mandatory detention of children in circumstances such as those described in that submission as involving:
(a) a breach by Australia of its international obligations under a number of treaties including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and
(b) a breach of its human rights obligations on simple humanitarian grounds regardless of and separate from its international obligations under (a) above; and
(c) an unjustifiable interference with what should be a paramount consideration, that is, the best interests of the child; and
(d) crippling permanent damage to children who are vulnerable and traumatised prior to their arrival in Australia;
A copy of this letter has been forwarded to the Prime Minister, the Commonwealth Attorney General, the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, the Premier of Victoria, the leader of the National Party and leaders of non government political parties in the Commonwealth Parliament, i.e. ALP, Greens and Democrats.
Last Updated 9 January 2003.
