Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (9 May) . . Page.. 1257 ..
MR STANHOPE (continuing):
sorry I did not bring the Hansard down to the chamber so I could do justice to the comments she made. I am sorry now that I did not bring down the comments from Ms Gregory and departmental officers in relation to the consultation process.
Mr Moore: Dr Gregory.
MR STANHOPE: I beg your pardon, and I beg Dr Gregory's pardon. Dr Gregory's advice was that there was no formal consultation at the time these provisions were first proposed by the government. That is why the Mental Health Tribunal has never taken evidence by audiovisual link. There isn't one. I understood from the evidence given to me at estimates that there probably never would be. I think everybody at the psychiatric unit thinks it is a particularly silly idea.
I have explained the point, and I can go through the exceptions. The Attorney makes much of the exceptions I alluded to in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It acknowledges clearly that there are exceptions. I mentioned this before. The Attorney's attempts at Gary-ing me are simply not appropriate. The article reads-and I would expect this to be reflected in our laws and I would expect this to be reflected in the attitudes which our courts take:
All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals. In the determination of any criminal charge against him, or of his rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law. The press and the public may be excluded from all or part of a trial for reasons of morals, public order ... or national security in a democratic society, or when the interest of the private lives of the parties so requires, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice; but any judgement rendered in a criminal case or in a suit at law shall be made public except where the interest of juvenile persons ...
Of course it is accepted there are occasions when people will be excluded from the courts, but to suggest that we should institutionalise a system in which a person compulsorily detained under the mental health legislation in the psychiatric unit might never get to appear in person seems to me unnecessarily and unacceptably restrictive. We do not know for how long they will be detained. We are talking here about the possibility of a person being compulsorily detained on a judgment that they are a risk either to themselves or to the community-not that they have committed any offence-and that as a result of their perceived or alleged illness or mental state they should not be able to enjoy their liberty. We are suggesting that that person should, potentially, never have an opportunity to stand up before the tribunal that can determine whether or not any order that has been made in relation to their detention should be reviewed. Maybe they will never get the opportunity to look in the eye those people who make the final determination about their liberty. That is what we are debating here.
I cannot accept that it can ever be acceptable that that right should rest in the hands of the tribunal, as much as we respect and admire them, as much as we respect and admire the judges and the magistrates who make up the tribunal, as much as I respect and admire the staff at the psychiatric unit. But that is not the point. It is a spurious argument that the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .