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Woomera child detainees to appeal in Britain

May 28, 2004 - 10:47AM

Two boys who broke out of the Woomera detention centre in 2002 and were then refused asylum by Britain, have won the right to take their case to the British Court of Appeal.

The boys, aged 12 and 13 at the time, sought asylum at the British Consulate-General in Melbourne, but were returned to Woomera, in South Australia's north, where they had earlier taken part in a mass breakout.

Lawyer Paul Boylan, working with an Australian firm advising British solicitors on the case, said they were arguing that by not granting the boys asylum, the British government had breached a human rights convention contained in its laws.

They are also arguing that British Foreign Minister Jack Straw failed to take the time to properly consider their case.

"There's the argument that Mr Straw made the decision without properly considering the boys' application," Mr Boylan said.

"In our system (applicants for asylum) are asked to fill out reams of forms and state their case orally on two occasions.

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"Jack Straw, within seven hours, said no and pushed them out the front door.

"Our argument is that he should have granted them asylum and that the fact that he didn't was a breach of English law."

Mr Boylan said a key to the boys' case was that British law included the European convention of human rights, which contains an article forbidding "torture or inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment".

"Pushing the kids back to the Australian detention authorities subjected them to probably not torture, but to inhumane and degrading treatment and punishment," Mr Boylan said.

"The way the boys were treated during that time at Woomera the English lawyers believe was a pretty obvious breach of the European convention.

"There's also some thinking that Jack Straw made a mistake by thinking that the international convention of human rights is part of Australian law, which it is not.

"That's why we can breach it.

"The nub of it is that the English lawyers are fairly sure that the way we treat children detainees will be a breach of their convention."

Mr Boylan said the case, to be heard in July, had the potential to severely embarrass the federal government, if it ruled that the way children in detention were treated in Australia would be unacceptable under British law.

The boys were released from detention on a Family Court order last year, but that decision was overturned by the High Court last month, and they are now in community detention in Adelaide.