Civil libertarians have praised a parliamentary push for Australia to withhold information from foreign police forces that could lead to Australians facing the death penalty.
The change would have had consequences for the Bali Nine, three of whom remain on death row in Indonesia.
The Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has recommended a review by its counterpart committee on Intelligence and Security into "Australian policy and procedures concerning police-to-police cooperation and intelligence-sharing arrangements".
"The committee recommends that information should not be exchanged with another country if doing so would expose an Australian citizen to the death penalty," the committee said as it tabled its 91st report to Parliament.
That report also said that Australia's responsibility for people extradited should "not end at the conclusion of the extradition process, but should extend to a formal system of monitoring the detention of extradited people, the judicial proceedings they are subject to, their sentencing and imprisonment".
The chief executive of Civil Liberties Australia, Bill Rowlings, said that the proposed changes would correct inadequacies in the current guidelines given to the Australian Federal Police.
"Most Australians don't want their police force shopping Aussies to overseas countries, when our citizens could be arrested, tried, convicted and jailed in Australia, if only the AFP waits a few days or weeks," he said.
The AFP's handling of the Bali nine case had been "totally inappropriate".
"The AFP appear to be quite proud of what they did, and would do exactly the same thing next time," he said.
He believed most Australians would be horrified if the AFP repeated the procedure "when they could wait a bit, and arrest people back in Australia under our own laws, and not expose them to the death penalty".
He described as a scandal Australia's previous practice of handing extradited people over when "no-one has done any checking on what happened to them".
"We congratulate [the committee] on tackling both issues trying to stop the Bali 9 situation happening again, and introducing formal monitoring of what happens to people we hand over to other countries," he said.
The committee's extradition recommendation urges that new agreements "should explicitly provide a requirement that the requesting country provide annual information concerning the trial status and health of extradited persons and the conditions of the detention facilities in which they are held".
After being advised of all extraditions by the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade "would be expected to formally monitor all extradited Australians through the consular network".
Source: The Canberra Times
The change would have had consequences for the Bali Nine, three of whom remain on death row in Indonesia.
The Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has recommended a review by its counterpart committee on Intelligence and Security into "Australian policy and procedures concerning police-to-police cooperation and intelligence-sharing arrangements".
"The committee recommends that information should not be exchanged with another country if doing so would expose an Australian citizen to the death penalty," the committee said as it tabled its 91st report to Parliament.
That report also said that Australia's responsibility for people extradited should "not end at the conclusion of the extradition process, but should extend to a formal system of monitoring the detention of extradited people, the judicial proceedings they are subject to, their sentencing and imprisonment".
The chief executive of Civil Liberties Australia, Bill Rowlings, said that the proposed changes would correct inadequacies in the current guidelines given to the Australian Federal Police.
"Most Australians don't want their police force shopping Aussies to overseas countries, when our citizens could be arrested, tried, convicted and jailed in Australia, if only the AFP waits a few days or weeks," he said.
The AFP's handling of the Bali nine case had been "totally inappropriate".
"The AFP appear to be quite proud of what they did, and would do exactly the same thing next time," he said.
He believed most Australians would be horrified if the AFP repeated the procedure "when they could wait a bit, and arrest people back in Australia under our own laws, and not expose them to the death penalty".
He described as a scandal Australia's previous practice of handing extradited people over when "no-one has done any checking on what happened to them".
"We congratulate [the committee] on tackling both issues trying to stop the Bali 9 situation happening again, and introducing formal monitoring of what happens to people we hand over to other countries," he said.
The committee's extradition recommendation urges that new agreements "should explicitly provide a requirement that the requesting country provide annual information concerning the trial status and health of extradited persons and the conditions of the detention facilities in which they are held".
After being advised of all extraditions by the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade "would be expected to formally monitor all extradited Australians through the consular network".
Source: The Canberra Times
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