Asia Times: Lobbying may tone down UN review of mandatory laws



	March 8, 2000	atimes.com

Oceania

Lobbying may tone down UN review of mandatory laws
By Sonny Inbaraj

DARWIN - Australia could be let off the hook with regard to its controversial mandatory sentencing laws following intense diplomatic lobbying of the UN's human rights office by Australian officials.

The Age newspaper reported at the weekend that in a series of meetings, Australian officials warned that the report being compiled in the office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson, could have political consequences in Australia.

Looming on the horizon is a March 11 by-election in the seat of Port Darwin in the Northern Territory being fought on the divisive issue of mandatory sentencing - which over the past two years has seen children jailed for stealing biscuits and cans of beer.

Robinson is to examine mandatory laws in the Northern Territory and West Australia at the request of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who visited Canberra late last month. The UN Human Rights Commissioner will investigate whether the laws breach Australia's obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child following the death of a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy in a Darwin juvenile detention center on February 10.

The boy from Groote Eylandt, 800 kilometers from Darwin, was the first person to die in custody in the Northern Territory while serving a mandatory sentence. He was jailed for breaking into a Groote Eylandt school and stealing stationery and paint worth A$140.

Northern Territory coroner Greg Cavanagh ordered a coronial investigation into the death, while the Territory government said there were no suspicious circumstances.

Under Northern Territory law if juveniles aged 15 and 16 commit more than two property crimes, they must be sentenced to 28 days detention. Youths 17 and older are considered adults and are jailed for 14 days for a first offense, unless extraordinary circumstances can be proved. The penalty increases to three months jail for the second offense and 12 months for subsequent offenses.

In West Australia, if a person aged 10 or older is convicted of home burglary and has two or more previous convictions for the same offense on different occasions before the court, the court must impose a penalty of one-year imprisonment.

Evidence shows that both laws target young, marginalized, Aboriginal males, often from remote communities.

''Mandatory sentencing is discriminatory. In the Northern Territory, indigenous Australians are six times more likely to be locked up than other Australians and in Western Australia young black people are 60 times more likely to be imprisoned under mandatory sentencing,'' said a petition signed by 50 prominent Australians.

Unicef chief executive Gaye Philips said mandatory laws breached the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that demands imprisonment be the last resort of punishment for a crime.

''Article 37(b) of the convention states that detention must be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time,'' she said. ''Mandatory imprisonment in the Northern Territory and Western Australia applies regardless of the nature of the second property offense.''

But according to The Age the UN Human Rights Commissioner's office has played down the status of Robinson's involvement, saying she was not conducting an official inquiry but rather producing a broad report. ''I would say it is an assessment of a general nature on the principle of the laws,'' Robinson's spokesman, Jose Diaz, told the paper. ''We don't want people to get the impression we are about to hand down a judgment on the sovereign laws of your country. We are preparing a reference document on mandatory sentencing.''

An official privy to the report quoted by The Age said Robinson was now ''well aware'' of the charged political environment in Australia. ''I think the report will make it clear that the commissioner does not wish to become involved in an internal debate in Australia,'' the official said.

The March 11 Port Darwin by-election came about with the recent resignation of former Territory chief minister Shane Stone from the ruling Country Liberal Party (CLP). Stone was the architect of mandatory sentencing during his period as chief minister between 1995 to 1999.

The CLP, which has ruled the Northern Territory for the past 23 years and is in a coalition with the federal government of John Howard, holds Port Darwin with a slim 18 percent margin. However the party over the past year has done badly in by-elections.

While publicly Northern Territory CLP officials have thumbed their noses at UN plans to investigate mandatory sentencing, with Chief Minister Denis Burke promising any recommendation would be greeted with a polite ''so what?'', privately they are wary the UN report could affect the Port Darwin by-election results.

Throwing his weight behind Burke, Prime Minister John Howard last week told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: ''We've had our blemishes and made our errors . . . but I'm not going to have a situation where people are denigrating the human rights reputation of Australia.''

Already the Territory government has taken full-page newspaper advertisements to explain its mandatory sentencing laws, incensed by the portrayal of the Northern Territory as a redneck backwater that jails people for trivial offenses. But the opposition Labor and Green parties are enraged, saying taxpayers money was being used to fund the CLP's Port Darwin campaign. ''Quite unnecessarily, Australia has been put on trial by the Northern Territory and West Australian governments' illegal decision to override international law,'' said Greens Senator Bob Brown who is sponsoring a private member's bill to squash the provisions.

The last straw, however, could come from the Northern Territory judiciary with a former Supreme Court judge calling upon magistrates and judges to examine their consciences on whether to preside over mandatory sentencing cases.

''It's a very big task to say people should effectively resign their judicial office,'' said former Supreme Court judge Michael Maurice. ''But these laws are so profoundly unjust. I certainly think there's a case for resignation. I certainly wouldn't be able to hear mandatory sentencing cases.''

(Inter Press Service)