NSW: Mandatory sentencing contrary to human rights: Bar Assn

AAP General News (Australia)
08-14-2001
NSW: Mandatory sentencing contrary to human rights: Bar Assn

SYDNEY, Aug 14 AAP - Mandatory sentencing violated Australia's obligations under international
human rights treaties, the NSW Bar Association told a Senate inquiry today.

The committee is investigating the mandatory sentencing laws in the Northern Territory
and Western Australia, after Greens Senator Bob Brown proposed using a federal private
members' bill to override the controversial laws.

NSW Bar Association senior vice-president Brett Walker told the inquiry mandatory sentencing
distorted the sentencing process because it did not differentiate between serious and
relatively minor offences.

"I personally have an opinion, I realise not shared by everybody, that it is much more
serious to punch somebody in a public street than to steal a lemonade.

"That's one of the reasons that robbery which combines elements of both is more serious
than either," Mr Walker said.

In his submission, he said the NSW Bar Association supported the Brown legislation
"to implement Australia's human rights obligations under various international instruments
with respect to the sentencing of people for property offences".

Mandatory detention of juveniles and imprisonment for property offences were contrary
to fundamental principles of human rights and sentencing law, it said.

Australia's mandatory sentencing laws had been examined by three United Nations independent
human rights treaty bodies and each had concluded that the laws violated Australia's obligations
under relevant international human rights instruments, it said.

Mr Walker's submission also said mandatory sentencing was inconsistent with the principle
of a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal and review of sentence
by a higher tribunal.

"There are particular concerns in relation to the availability of interpreters for
Aboriginal people appearing before the courts under mandatory sentencing regimes," it
said.

The submission also expressed concern over disproportionate sentencing and called for
uniform laws to safeguard human rights.

"The Association is troubled by unequivocal evidence concerning the disproportionately
high rates of detention of Aboriginal offenders which result from mandatory sentencing
detention and imprisonment regimes," it said.

Mandatory detention and the imprisonment of young people was inconsistent with fundamental
standards concerning the rights of children, it said.

Imprisonment of a child should only be used as a measure of last resort, the submission said.

AAP maur/jjs/ns/bwl

KEYWORD: MANDATORY

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