A consortium of international lawyers, led from England, has asked the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court to take action against Australia for crimes arising out of its policy towards asylum seekers.
The Consortium has issued a 52-page Communiqué which alleges that the Australian Government is guilty of international crimes because of its policy of indefinite mandatory detention of refugee “boat people” and their forcible removal to Manus Island (part of Papua New Guinea) and Nauru (which is called the Pacific Solution).
The Communiqué fully explains that the Pacific Solution, which was revived in 2012 and remains in place, appears to have, as its primary objective, breaking the spirit of the people held on Manus or Nauru.
The mistreatment of asylum seekers is not limited to the Pacific Solution. Christmas Island which is part of Australia, more than 1500 kilometers north-west of mainland Australia, also had detention centres.
The people are kept in these “Offshore Processing Centres” whilst their asylum claims are processed. Reports of cruelty and mistreatment are numerous and getting more serious.
The Communiqué is supported by witness evidence from doctors, workers, visitors and former detainees at the Offshore Processing Centres. Key findings include:
- As at 31 March 2014, there were 153 babies, 204 pre-schoolers (aged 2 to 4 years old), 336 primary school aged children, and 196 teenagers in Immigration Detention. As at 31 January 2016, 142 children remained in Immigration Detention.
- The average child spends 231 days in Immigration Detention.
- On average, the general population of refugees spend 457 days in Immigration Detention.
- There is inadequate food and water, a lack of medicine and medical treatment, overcrowding, and a subsistence of violent incidents. Further, the length of detention is generally indefinite at the outset.
- Conditions are unhygienic. On Nauru, showers are generally restricted to 30 seconds each day. Staff have said that the water has run out on multiple occasions, with overflowing, blocked toilets and faeces on the floor.
Reports from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are highly critical of the Pacific Solution and Australia’s treatment of those seeking asylum.
Amnesty International has also issued several reports equally critical of Australia’s policies towards refugees and the conditions in which they are held.
The Communiqué cites precedents in international law which show that Prime Ministers and Ministers for Immigration in Australia, Nauru and Papua New Guinea could be held personally responsible as perpetrators of crimes.
The lawyers behind the Communiqué consder that there is no option remaining, other than the International Criminal Court (ICC). Previous legal action before the UN Human Rights Committee, UN Human Rights Council and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) have not changed the Australian Government’s course. Asylum seekers who have had their detention recognised as arbitrary by the WGAD and are still in detention over a year or more later – including those with children. The previous Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, in response to comments by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, stated that ‘Australians are sick of being lectured to by the UN’.
As such, the ICC is really the venue of last resort.
Courtenay Barklem, former human rights adviser at the Law Society of England and Wales said: “This scandal sullies Australia’s record on human rights. We expect Australia to have higher standards and not to mistreat some of the most vulnerale people through deliberate government policies. This diminishes Australia’s reputation in the eyes of the international community.”
It names every Australian PM and Immigration Minister since 2002, as well as Mr Baron Waqa (current Nauruan President and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade). It details the cruel treatment of boat people by successive Australian governments: communique-to-icc
I totally support Julian Burnside in his complaint about the breaches of human rights in regards to asylum seekers detained on Nauru and Manus. The situation is beyond appalling. To persecute, detain and deny vulnerable and genuine refugees freedom is something that I thought I would never witness in my lifetime and furthermore, to use them as politcal bait is more incredible. Australia needs to reclaim decency and appropriacy and treat people according to the Law.
Well I would like to know whether, if found guilty they can be arrested and taken into custody once they step outside Australia or will they anyway be protected by diplomatic immunity? If found guilty, will they AFP be obliged under international treaties to make arrests. Or will it just be another episode in legal tokenism? Finally, as a taxpayer I would consider any use of public money to defend individuals would be reimbursible by the defendants if found guilty. Am I dreaming?
Yes, they can.
And I agree: they should not dip into the public purse to defend themselves: the indefinite detention system has already cost us tens of thousands of millions of dollars
Are you people for real?
Some overseas consortium of lawyers jumps up and proposes to pursue Australian Government members, including the PM, and you immediately see this as ‘validation’ of your views and proceed to debate possible punishment and ‘costs’ relating to their undoubted trial and conviction.
Mention is made that the consortium is led by UK lawyers. Are we expected to think this gives credence in itself to the charges? It would be interesting to ascertain if the consortium included the UK law firm of PIL, headed by Phil Shiner. This firm of ambulance-chasing activists, pursuing British military serving personnel for ‘atrocities’ in Afghanistan, Iraq etc has been closed down, and Shiner is facing disbarment for not just chasing ambulances, but
actively throwing victims under the wheels of the said ambulance, via actual bribes to so-called witnesses and accusers. Google it.
The charge includes every Australian PM and Immigration Minister since 2002? Why stop there? Why not the entire Australian Government and any citizen who voted for them in the first place? Why not throw in all racists, homophobes, Islamophobes, Brexiters, deniers of global warming and Donald Trump supporters while they’re at it?
And of course, they will have to fund their own defence; no tax-payer funding for them ( despite the fact they are probably the bulk of the tax-payers in the first place).
If they have broken the law, do you propose we should just ignore that?
And why limited to 2002? That’s when Australia bound itself to the International Criminal Court. And that’s when we passed laws which mirror the Statute of Rome, over which the ICC has jurisdiction. and that’s when our policy of mandatory indefinite detention became a criminal offence AGAINST OUR OWN LAW.
Since 2002, successive governments have not only been pursuing electoral popularity by imprisoning innocent people and lying to us about it (e.g. calling them “illegal”); they have been breaking our own domestic laws (introduced in 2002) and breaking international law.
Do you propose we should just ignore that?
The ICC is still looking at it. They are under-resourced, so I expect that this problem is less important than getting mass-murderers.
The problem with s.501 visa cancellations is that our Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, has vast, unexaminable powers.
No politician should have the sort of powers he has, and he is ill-suited to have any significant power at all over other people.
In the Immigration portfolio, he has power to have a profound and damaging impact on peoples’ lives, which he uses with not apparent regard for the impact his decision-making will have on their lives.
Glad to hear that someone, somewhere is speaking out on behalf of Manus and Nauru refugees, who where so badly treated by AUS. I am ashamed and indignant at what was done to these people who came to our shores to seek asylum.
Our country has provided a home to many, regardless of whether they came by boat or plane, would like this to continue so our children and grandchildren will learn compassion & justice. Those responsible for incarceration & illtreatment should tried in International court, & soon!
I’d love to see this come to pass. Lives have been lost as a direct result of these policies, lives that were under our care. The damage and trauma caused to everyone subject to them, is disgusting.
These politicians have toyed with these vulnerable asylum seekers for political gain, with no regard for their lives or welfare. I am ashamed that my country would be reduced to this.
Thank you Julian for speaking for us. Someone has to do it. These men, are, in fact, mass murderers disguised as politicians and they lie through their teeth, it is the way they operate. As you have said, nobody, absolutely nobody should have this much power, less of all Mr Dutton. All of this is so so sad and in desperate need of attention. It is a relief to know that someone has actually done something practical about it. It is so embarrassing for the good hard working people of this once fair and friendly country to end up with such horrendous image to the rest of the world and a terrible shame for us citizens of Australia.