The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) condemns the secret decision of the Tasmanian Government to transfer Aboriginal youths from Ashley Youth Detention Centre to an adult prison facility, a transfer expected to occur imminently.
The TAC has outlined that the decision represents a serious breach of human rights and Australia’s obligations to children.
TAC understands that some of the Aboriginal young people identified for transfer are unsentenced. This is a critical and deeply troubling fact. Placing unsentenced children in an adult prison is a serious breach of the presumption of innocence and basic legal protections that apply to all children deprived of their liberty.
Rebecca Digney, CEO of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, said she understands the decision to transfer these young people has been made without informing the children or their families.
“These young people have the right to know what the State plans to do to them,” Ms Digney said. “By failing to tell them or their families, the State has effectively denied these young the chance to seek legal advice or advocacy at the very moment they need it most.”
“This is not a small procedural issue. It goes to the heart of fairness and due process. If young people are not told what decisions are being made about them, they cannot challenge those decisions or protect their rights.”
Ms Digney said it is difficult not to view the timing of the decision cynically.
“It is hard not to be cynical that the Department has acted less than a day before the Christmas shutdown, at exactly the time when access to lawyers and advocates is most limited,” she said.
“This timing makes an already serious rights breach even worse.”
It is the law in Tasmania that when Aboriginal children are involved in the youth justice system, decisions affecting them must involve input from the Aboriginal community. This reflects long-standing recognition that culturally informed decision-making is essential for the wellbeing and long-term rehabilitation of Aboriginal young people. No such consultation has occurred in this case.
The decision to enact a secret transfer clearly breaches the Youth Justice Act and international law. The Youth Justice Act requires that children be treated in a way that focuses on rehabilitation, fairness, with the involvement of family and community. It also specifies that child detainees are not treated in a way that is harsher than how an adult would be treated.
“It is difficult to imagine a similar decision being made about an adult prisoner, without that prisoner being informed of what was proposed” Ms Digney said.
Australia is bound by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says children in detention must be treated with dignity and kept separate from adults unless there is a very clear reason why that would be in the child’s best interests.
“When it comes to children in detention, the law is clear,” Ms Digney said “decisions must be made based on what is best for the child, not what is easiest for the State.”
“For over two decades, the Tasmanian Aboriginal community ran a successful alternative to detention program for many years on a remote island in the Bass Strait. There we treated our troubled young people with kindness, care and dignity. We supported them to take responsibility for their actions and focused on their rehabilitation. The program worked and re-offending rates were low. That program was defunded by the State, and now, we see the result of that cost saving measure, with Aboriginal youth being ear marked for secret transfers to adult prisons”
The decision to enact these transfers must also be viewed in its historical and legal context. More than three decades after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and less than six months after Tasmania was forced to compensate young people for serious failures of care while in detention, this action shows a disturbing disregard for well-established legal and moral responsibilities.
“The State must immediately stop these transfers, be transparent with the children and families involved, and ensure these young people’s rights are protected,” Ms Digney said.
“Anything less is a profound failure of duty.”
ENDS.
More information: Rebecca Digney
