Australia urged to amend laws that allows the mentally disabled to be detained indefinitely

A panel of United Nation experts have urged Australia to amend its laws that lead to people with mental disabilities being detained indefinitely.

The suggestion comes after an Australian Aboriginal man with intellectual disability who was accused of a child sex abuse charge in 2001 was detained for the offence for more than 10 years without undergoing a proper trial for the offence.

The United Nation's Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in a statement on Friday said Marlon James Noble who was charged in Western Australia should not have gone through such an ordeal in the first place.

"Under Western Australia's Criminal Law (Mentally Impaired Defendants) Act of 1996, once a person is found unfit to plead, he or she can be held in custody for an unlimited period," CRPD said.

"They have no possibility to go before the courts unless or until they are deemed able to understand the notion of criminal responsibility."

Noble, who denied the charges, was detained until his conditional release in November 2012.

He has now brought his complain to the Geneva-based committee who has assessed the matter and found that the Australian judiciary had committed much flaws in the handling of his case.

For a start, the committee noted that throughout Noble's detention, "the whole judicial procedure focused on his mental capacity to stand trial without giving him any possibility to plead not guilty and test the evidence submitted against him."

"He therefore never had the opportunity to have the criminal charges against him determined and his status as an alleged sexual offender cleared," the committee said while highlighting that the charges were never proven.

In addition, the authorities did not provide adequate support to enable him to stand trial and plead not guilty to the charges.

"Under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in which Australia has ratified, States are obliged to recognise that people with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with all others in all aspects of life," CRPD said.

Noble was detained without knowing how long he would be in custody.

"Taking into account the irreparable psychological effects that indefinite detention may have on the detained person, the committee considers that the indefinite detention he was subjected to amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment," members wrote.

The CRPD has asked the Australian government to provide Noble with an effective remedy and immediately revoke the 10 conditions of his release, which members found also constituted a violation of the convention.

"Australia was also obliged to take measures to prevent similar violations, including making the necessary amendments to the Mentally Impaired Defendants Act in WA and all equivalent or related Federal or state laws," CRPD concluded in the statement. Endit