Lawyer slams Australias asylum laws
Publish date: 02 November 2004
Issue Number: 1208
Diary: Legalbrief Today
Category: Human rights
An Australian lawyer has argued at a national conference of lawyers that the countrys asylum laws were unjust and that the treatment dished out to asylum seekers was the best argument for a Bill of Rights.
The Age reports Julian Burnside, QC, said the government had breached baseline values in laws that validated inhumane treatment of refugees. Burnside said the government had successfully argued that immigration detention was lawful, irrespective of how harsh the conditions were, that it was entitled to deport people even if they faced torture and possible death in their country of origin. He added that the government also made use of solitary confinement as a management tool in detention centres, without any system of regulation. Full report in The Age
