Immigration Detention Inquiry - Advocacy Statement

Joint Standing Committee on Migration
Department of House of Representatives
PO Box 6021
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

August 2008

Dear Committee Members,

On behalf of the signatory organisations below, we would like to thank you for initiating this inquiry into immigration detention. This has been a policy area of great public debate in the past ten years and we hope that this inquiry will lead to significant reform of the current immigration detention regime.

We applaud the positive changes that have happened in detention policy in recent years: the release of most children into the community, the use of residence determination for vulnerable people, improvements to service delivery within detention centres including the mental health care of detainees, the new role for the Commonwealth Ombudsman to report on conditions and lengthy detention, the system of individual case-management and the closure of centres on Nauru and Manus Island.

However, we feel it is of utmost importance that the committee is made aware of the broad consensus among the advocacy community towards necessary continued reforms of immigration detention.

The deprivation of liberty is one of the strongest infringements?of an?individual's rights and must be done so only under the strictest of legal guidelines. We believe that immigration detention should therefore meet the following minimum principals:

Immigration detention should be used as a measure of last resort for all people, not just children. It should be used only for legitimate necessary purposes: for health, character, identity and security checks, or where there is a proven ongoing security need.

Immigration detention should have clear time limits, with public and legal scrutiny and detained people must have the ability to challenge that detention.

Immigration detention should have all the ordinary standards expected by the rule of law, with a framework governed by legal rules, not by discretion.

Immigration detention should be conducted with every step taken to ensure that a person in detention can access all necessary legal and welfare services and to ensure that every detainee can properly realise their right to legal advice.

We look forward to the report from this inquiry, which we hope will recommend that Australia?s immigration detention regime should be reformed to be in line with these stated principles.

Signatories:

A Just Australia

ACTU ? Australian Council of Trade Unions

Amnesty International Australia

Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office

Australian Lawyers for Human Rights

Australian Refugee Association

Asylum Seeker Centre of NSW

Brotherhood of St. Laurence, Ecumenical Migration Centre

Canberra Refugee Action Committee

ChilOut ? Children Out of Detention

Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia (FECCA)

Foundation House ? Victorian Foundations for Survivors of Torture

GetUp!

Hotham Mission ? Asylum Seeker Project

House of Welcome

Human Rights Act for Australia campaign

Immigration Lawyers Association of Australasia

International Commission of Jurists (Australia)

Jesuit Refugee Service

Justice Project

Law Council of Australia

Oxfam International Australia

Refugee Council of Australia

Researchers for Asylum

Rural Australians for Refugees

Sabian Mand?an Association

Sanctuary Refugee Foundation

Tear Australia

UnitingJustice Australia, Uniting Church in Australia

Vietnamese Community in Australia

World Vision Australia