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| Keeping juveniles in adult jail is unlawful, Victorian judge rules Keeping juveniles in adult jail is unlawful, Victorian judge rules | |
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| Keeping juvenile offenders in a Victorian adult jail is unlawful and against their human rights, a senior judge has ruled. | Keeping juvenile offenders in a Victorian adult jail is unlawful and against their human rights, a senior judge has ruled. |
| On Wednesday, the Victorian supreme court judge Greg Garde declared that the state government’s decision to transfer a group of youths to the maximum security Barwon prison was unlawful and “failed to give proper consideration to their human rights”. | |
| Garde handed down his judgment after lawyers for a group of teenage offenders challenged their transfer to the state’s maximum security prison when riots damaged the Malmsbury and Parkville youth detention facilities. | Garde handed down his judgment after lawyers for a group of teenage offenders challenged their transfer to the state’s maximum security prison when riots damaged the Malmsbury and Parkville youth detention facilities. |
| The Victorian government says it has nowhere else to send the teenage offenders, who are still in the Grevillea unit at Barwon. The unit has been operated as a youth remand and custodial centre by the Department of Health and Humam Services. Up to 40 youths were transferred to the prison in November. | |
| Garde ordered the youths be transferred to another youth facility in Victoria by 4pm on Thursday. | |
| Government lawyers immediately moved to appeal against the judgment and sought a stay on the teens’ transfer. | |
| There were no other facilities available to house the youths, and the government didn’t have the capacity to meet Thursday’s deadline, the court was told on Wednesday. | |
| Repairs to the damaged sections of the Parkville and Malmsbury detention centres would take up to eight months, the government argued. | |
| But Brian Walters QC, acting for the teenagers, said: “We strongly contest the false assertion that there is nowhere else for these people to go.” | |
| Ruth Barson, the director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, says Wednesday’s ruling is a “significant outcome” for children’s rights in Victoria. | |
| “Jailing children in an adult prison is wrong,” she said in a statement. “We’re thrilled that as of today no Victorian child will have to spend Christmas in appalling conditions in the state’s most notorious adult jail.” | |
| The government’s bid to postpone the removal of the youths from Barwon Prison continues. | |
| The Andrews government in late November agreed to move Indigenous teens out of Barwon after a legal challenge was launched by the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. |