[recoznet2] Mandatory Sentencing in the NT
MEDIA RELEASE 23rd August 1999 Greens to repeal Mandatory Sentencing Laws Greens Senator Bob Brown is due to present the HUMAN RIGHTS (SENTENCING OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS) BILL 1999 in the federal parliament on the 24th August. The Bill provides that no law of a Commonwealth State or Territory can require a court to imprison or detain a child. This Bill has been drafted in direct response to concerns submitted from the Territory Greens that the community does not support present mandatory sentencing laws which: a.. Violate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the recommendations of the 1987 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. b.. Have not been proven effective in crime prevention and rehabilitation of offenders and further involve such offenders in a cycle of anti-social behaviour. c.. Are racially discriminate. 90% of under 17-year-olds in detention in the NT are Aboriginal. d.. Carry great social and economic costs to the community. Average daily cost for a juvenile in detention facility over 1997/98 was $331.62. "The mandatory detention of children in the Northern Territory is a clear and unarguable breach of Australia's international human rights obligations, and the Territory Greens have taken this avenue through Senator Brown to present this Bill to overturn present NT legislation. We encourage the NT Government to consider addressing the social problems that contribute to the incidence of crime, rather than jailing people. We believe that there are cost-effective and just ways of dealing with prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour that do not involve imprisonment. Issues such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment, drug and alcohol dependence, boredom and family breakdown are not being adequately addressed." Territory Greens spokesperson Andy Gough announced today. Support for the Bill has already been received from Labor Senator Trish Crossin who stated: "It is the intention of the ALP is to support the introduction of this Bill and its referral to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee for an Inquiry. This will enable all parties that either support or oppose the case for mandatory sentencing to be put before the Federal Parliament." The Bill is also widely supported by community groups such as Territorians for Effective Sentencing, which incorporates the NT Council of Churches, Darwin Community Legal Service, and the Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council. For more information contact Andy Gough (08) 89811343 or Bob Brown (02) 6277 3170 www.nt.greens.org.au --- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words:unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
[recoznet2] SMH - Let judges be the judge
JUVENILE CRIME Let judges be the judge Date: 23/08/99 Mandatory sentencing is inevitably a denial of justice. By GEORGE ZDENKOWSKI The Senate is about to consider legislation invalidating all Federal, State and Territory laws which impose mandatory prison sentences on juveniles. A private member's bill, the Human Rights (Mandatory Sentencing of Juvenile Offenders) Bill 1999, is being put up by the Greens Senator Bob Brown and its immediate target is the notorious 1997 Northern Territory mandatory minimum imprisonment legislation. This required courts, in designated property crimes, to imprison adults (those 17 and above) for their first offence and juveniles (15- or 16-year-olds) for their second offence, no matter how trivial the offences and without regard to the offender's background - the twin considerations usually at the heart of sentencing decisions. There is no adequate statistical base to measure the effectiveness of the legislation against crime, but its unfairness and its economic and social cost are plain: removing judicial discretion creates harsh, capricious and arbitrary outcomes with a particularly devastating impact on the indigenous population. The NSW Chief Justice, Jim Spigelman, talking about guideline sentences, recently observed: "Sentencing discretion is an essential component of the fairness of our criminal justice system [otherwise] there will always be the prospect of injustice ... Guideline judgments are preferable to the constraints of mandatory minimum terms of grid sentencing." Despite sustained criticism, the NT laws (and kindred "three strikes" laws in WA) have survived both political and constitutional challenge. Recent amendments to the NT laws have done little to assuage critics because few defendants could demonstrate the exceptional circumstances required to avoid a mandatory term. For indigenous offenders, it is likely to be business as usual. Moreover, the mandatory regime has been extended to new offences. In 1998, Senator Brown formulated the Abolition of Compulsory Imprisonment Bill to override the NT regime. It was based on S122 of the Commonwealth Constitution which authorises the Federal Parliament to enact laws for the NT. But this ran into complaints that it was an attack on NT autonomy and was discriminatory. The new bill has an Australia-wide application and its scope is also limited to outlawing the mandatory imprisonment of juveniles which some politicians might find more palatable than a general measure which extended to adults. The constitutional basis for the bill is the external affairs power. The bill would implement aspects of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (an international treaty to which Australia is a signatory) requiring the use of imprisonment only as a last resort. One interesting issue would be whether the bill also overrode the NT law as far as 17-year-old Northern Territorian adults were concerned. The international benchmark of adulthood is 18. However, the Brown bill defines a child as a person under 18. Arguably, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides a constitutional touchstone for a general measure prohibiting Commonwealth, State and Territorial legislation requiring courts to impose mandatory prison terms on anyone. But the legal and political arguments for relying on the Convention on the Rights of the Child are certainly stronger. There is, apparently, growing support for Senator Brown's bill in the Senate. But the key will be the Government's attitude in the House of Representatives. The Greens are also canvassing support for a Senate inquiry into mandatory sentencing. Such inquiries have the power and resources to amass detailed, credible evidence. In the NT, consideration is being given by a member of an Aboriginal community in Darwin to an approach to the UN Human Rights Committee about a violation of aspects of the ICCPR by the NT legislation. There is also an Amnesty International campaign, focusing on mandatory imprisonment of juveniles, which is likely to cause the Australian Government international embarrassment. However, it remains to be seen whether these developments can influence a government which is publicly sceptical about the domestic implementation of human rights obligations in international treaties. - George Zdenkowski is an associate professor of law at the University of NSW. This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. --- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words:unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for
[recoznet2] AAP: PM shifting ground on stolen generation [sic] apology
PM shifting ground on stolen generation apology From AAP 23aug99 12.10pm (AEST) A FORMAL apology to the stolen generation of Aboriginal children now appears likely, due to a change of heart by Prime Minister John Howard. Mr Howard had vetoed an apology because of concerns it could lead to legal action from Aborigines forcibly removed from their parents. But cabinet secretary, Senator Bill Heffernan, who has been working behind the scenes on the issue, told ABC radio he believed Mr Howard was now prepared to back some form of apology. "I think the Prime Minister has come a long way on this issue and certainly is keen to see a solution," he said. Instead of a Government apology, the motion is now likely to come from the parliament. Newly-elected Australian Democrats Senator Aden Ridgeway, the only indigenous member of Parliament, is expected to call this week for a conscience vote on the apology. Senator Ridgeway already has brokered a compromise with Mr Howard on the proposed preamble and Senator Heffernan said he was confident another compromise would remove the need for a conscience vote. "I would have thought that given the right, correct form of words that a conscience vote shouldn't be necessary because I would have thought that all Australians would support the right form of words to reflect what has gone on in the past," he said. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said he was delighted by Senator Heffernan's move, but urged the Prime Minister not to bother with an apology unless he really meant it. "That's excellent, but at the end of the day an apology that's not meant is not an apology worth making," he said. "So I have said to the Prime Minister if you don't mean it and you don't feel it yourself don't make it, but let the parliament do it." The possible compromise has also run into early strife with the National Party, with MP Ian Causley warning a formal apology would divide the community and leave the Government open to compensation claims. "You can never trust lawyers," he said. "Lawyers jump in on anything these days and that's the real problem and they'll be in to try and get some money out of it for themselves mainly." --- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words:unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
[recoznet2] The Sunday Times: Aborigines were the first Americans
The Sunday Times (UK) http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/stifgnusa02003.html?999 August 22 1999 Aborigines were the first Americans By Sarah Toyne THE first people to inhabit America were Australian Aborigines - not American Indians. New archeological findings have uncovered evidence that they crossed the Pacific Ocean by boat and settled on the continent long before Siberians trekked across the Bering Straits after the Ice Age. Scientists have reconstructed the skull of a young girl found in Brazil. At 12,000 years old, "Luzia" is the oldest human skeleton yet found on the American landmass. During the past four years 50 other skulls have been discovered in Brazil and Colombia, all predating the invasion of Mongoloid peoples from the north about 9,000 years ago. Luzia's skull was discovered in the early 1970s by a French archeologist in a layer of sediment in Amazonas and was dismissed as insignificant. It was given away to the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, where it remained until a few years ago when Walter Neves, professor of biological anthropology at the University of Sao Paolo, heard about it and realised that it might provide vital clues for solving the mystery of America's anthropological heritage. The procedure has revealed conclusive evidence of Luzia's ancestry. Neves is still shocked by his findings. "When we started seeing the results, it was amazing because we realised the statistics were not showing these people to be Mongoloid; they were showing that they were anything except Mongoloid," he said. Luzia was reconstructed by Richard Neave, a forensic artist from the University of Manchester, for Ancient Voices, a BBC2 documentary to be shown next week. Neave's reconstruction backed up Neves's calculations: "That to me is a negroid face. The proportions of the face do not say anything about it being Mongoloid." Luzia's facial characteristics are similar to those of the people of the islands of southeast Asia, Australia and Melanesia. "They are similar to modern-day Aborigines and Africans and show no similarities at all with Mongoloids from east Asia and modern-day Indians," said Neves. The oldest signs of habitation in north or south America were previously believed to be stone spear points discovered at Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1930s. They were dated at 11,000 years old. Charcoal, a chipped stone stool and scraps of food found recently, however, have been dated at 40,000 years old - the remains, perhaps, of a campfire lit by ancient seafarers from Asia. The theory that Aborigines could have travelled by water to the Americas has been given further credence by the discovery of a painting of an ocean- going vessel in Western Australia, which is 20,000 years old. The 4,000-mile journey between Australia and South America can still be undertaken with relatively short island hops. Dennis Stanford, chairman of the anthropology department at the Natural Museum of History in Washington DC, believes the capability of prehistoric peoples has long been underestimated. "Way back then they weren't really 'cave' people, they were pretty sophisticated," he said. "I think Neolithic people were doing a whole lot more than we give them credit for; they were just as smart as you and I, they just did different things." Further evidence of the fate of the Aboriginal invaders has been provided by computer- imaging technology, used to interpret cave paintings in the Serra da Capivara in northeastern Brazil. The pictures show pregnant women and hunters chasing giant armadillos, as well as what were initially interpreted by archeologists as human figures dancing. After more examination, however, the figures are now thought to be warriors spinning through the air with a spear - illustrating battles between the Aborigines and the invading Mongoloids from the north. The American Aborigines were almost entirely wiped out by the encroaching Mongoloids, but anthropologists believe that some of their descendants, interbred with the Mongoloid peoples who preceded today's South American Indians, survived in Tierra del Fuego. Scientists believe that Aboriginal descendants escaped to this remote island off the southern tip of South America, where they prospered until European settlers migrating to Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century brought stomach illnesses to the area, which wiped out the majority of the remaining native Fuegans. Rows of white crosses mark the graves of the Fuegans, who wore sealskins and lit fires everywhere - even in boats - to protect themselves from the harsh climate. Their skulls have now been analysed to reveal features common to Neves's skulls. Evidence from Father de Agostini, an Italian ethnographer who filmed the Fuegan way of life in the 1930s, reveal similarities with Aboriginal culture in Australia. Only a few Fuegans remain alive today, a fading anthropological link with the first native Americans.
