There were credible allegations of deaths due to abuse in custody by government agents.

Black Lives Matter protests held in major cities sought to raise awareness of black deaths in custody and high rates of indigenous incarceration. Protesters and multiple media reports highlighted the more than 400 indigenous deaths in custody since a royal commission looking into the issue concluded in 1991, and they complained of a lack of convictions despite claims of excessive force or neglect by police.

Since August 2019, the deaths of two indigenous persons in custody have led to murder charges. In August a Western Australia police officer pleaded not guilty to murder in the shooting of a 29-year-old woman. In November 2019 a Northern Territory police officer was charged with murder after shooting a 19-year-old man.

A series of media reports alleged special forces soldiers carried out unlawful killings while on deployment in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2012. The Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force was investigating possible breaches of the laws of armed conflict by special forces personnel in Afghanistan.

There were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.

The law prohibits such practices, and the government generally respected these provisions. There were occasional claims police and prison officials mistreated suspects in custody; mistreatment of juvenile detainees was a particular concern.

Impunity was not a significant problem in the security forces.

There were reports regarding prison or detention center conditions that raised human rights concerns.

Physical Conditions: The most recent data from the Australian Institute of Criminology reported 72 prison deaths in 2017-18. Media sources alleged at least seven suspicious deaths occurred since August 2019, two of which occurred in 2020. Death rates for indigenous Australian prisoners continued higher than for others. For example, in June and July, three Aboriginal prisoners died (two by suicide, the third of unknown causes) in Western Australia prisons.

Prison visits in recent years in Western Australia and Queensland showed a high percentage of inmates had a cognitive, mental health, or physical disability and that inmates with such disabilities were more likely to be placed in solitary confinement and may also suffer higher rates of violence or abuse at the hands of other inmates or prison staff than other inmates.

The Disruptive Prisoner Policy of Western Australia’s Corrective Services also raised particular concern. In July attorneys for three Aboriginal prisoners filed a complaint before the state supreme court, alleging that the policy led some prisoners at the Hakea and Casuarina Prison to spend more than 23 hours a day in solitary confinement with as little as 30 minutes of fresh air a day. The policy was suspended pending an administrative review.

Administration: Authorities investigated allegations of inhumane conditions and documented the results of such investigations in a publicly accessible manner. The government investigated and monitored prison and detention center conditions.

Independent Monitoring: The government permitted visits by independent human rights observers. There were no reports of intimidation by authorities. A number of domestic and international human rights groups expressed concerns about conditions at domestic immigration detention centers (see section 2.f.).

The law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, and the government generally observed these prohibitions.

Police officers may seek an arrest warrant from a magistrate when a suspect cannot be located or fails to appear, but they also may arrest a person without a warrant if there are reasonable grounds to believe the person committed an offense. Police must inform arrested persons immediately of their legal rights and the grounds for their arrest and must bring arrested persons before a magistrate for a bail hearing at the next session of the court. The maximum investigation period police may hold and question a person without charge is 24 hours, unless extended by court order for up to an additional 24 hours.

Under limited circumstances in terrorism cases, a number of federal and state or territorial laws permit police to hold individuals in preventive detention without charge or questioning for up to 14 days. These laws contain procedural safeguards including on access to information related to lawyer-client communication.

By law the Office of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor helps ensure that counterterrorism laws strike an appropriate balance between protecting the community and protecting human rights. The federal police, the Australian Crime Commission, and intelligence agencies are subject to parliamentary oversight. The inspector general of intelligence and security is an independent statutory officer who provides oversight of the country’s six national intelligence agencies.

Bail generally is available to persons facing criminal charges unless authorities consider the person a flight risk or the charges carry a penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment or more. Authorities granted attorneys and families prompt access to detainees. Government-provided attorneys are available to provide legal advice to and represent detainees who cannot afford counsel.

Arbitrary Arrest: The law allows courts to detain convicted terrorists beyond the expiration of their sentence by up to an additional three years for preventive purposes where there is no less restrictive measure available to prevent the risk posed by the offender to the community. Various human rights organizations criticized this law as allowing the government to detain prisoners arbitrarily.

The law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government respected judicial independence and impartiality.

The law provides for the right to a fair and timely public trial, and an independent judiciary generally enforced this right. In state district and county courts and in state and territorial supreme courts, a judge and jury try serious offenses. Defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence and cannot be compelled to testify or confess guilt. They have the right to be informed promptly and in detail of the charges, with free interpretation as necessary from the moment charged through all appeals, the right to an attorney, to be present at their trial, and adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense. Government-funded attorneys are available to low-income persons. The defendant’s attorney can question witnesses, present witnesses and evidence, and appeal the court’s decision or the sentence imposed.

News emerged in late 2019 that a man known as both “Witness J” and Alan Johns (a pseudonym) had been prosecuted by the federal government and imprisoned in secret for crimes not made public. Media reports claimed Witness J is a former “senior military officer involved in intelligence” whose imprisonment in Canberra only came to light following a November 2019 judgment in the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court arising from a dispute related to his treatment in prison. The Australian Capital Territory’s justice minister, Shane Rattenbury, told media in November 2019 he was “deeply disturbed by the extraordinary levels of secrecy surrounding the ‘Witness J’ case” imposed by the federal government, claiming it showed a “growing disregard for the principles of open justice and a robust democracy.” In a statement in December 2019 federal Attorney-General Christian Porter said the matter related to “highly sensitive national security information” that was “of a kind that could endanger the lives or safety of others.” Witness J has since been released from prison after serving a 15-month sentence.

The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, James Renwick, began a review into the Witness J trial in March, stating that “wholly closed criminal proceedings do indeed appear to be unprecedented in Australia, save possibly during the World Wars.” In April Renwick abandoned the review, citing limitations imposed by COVID-19. Renwick’s term concluded on June 30, and it will be up to the new monitor to consider restarting the review of Witness J’s trial.

There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.

There is an independent and impartial judiciary in civil matters, and individuals or organizations may seek civil judicial remedies for human rights violations. There is also an administrative process at the state and federal levels to seek redress for alleged wrongs by government departments. Administrative tribunals may review a government decision only if the decision is in a category specified under a law, regulation, or other legislative instrument as subject to a tribunal’s review.

The government has laws and mechanisms in place for the resolution of Holocaust-era restitution claims, including by foreign citizens. The country is a signatory of the Terezin Declaration. Nongovernmental organizations were not aware of any recent restitution cases. The Department of State’s Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act report to Congress, released publicly on July 9, 2020, can be found on the Department’s website: https://www.state.gov/reports/just-act-report-to-congress/.

f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence

The law prohibits such actions, and there were no reports the government failed to respect these prohibitions. Police have authority to enter premises without a warrant in emergency circumstances.

There were several reports that police committed unlawful killings. Indigenous leaders asserted that a disproportionate number of indigenous persons, who constitute approximately 5 percent of the country’s population, were killed during their interactions with law enforcement. In June a media outlet reported that, according to its analysis of all police shootings over the previous three years, an indigenous person was 10 times more likely than a white person to be killed by police. The media outlet found that 38 percent of individuals killed by police between January 2017 and June 2020 were indigenous. It also found that 46 percent of fatal police shootings that occurred during that time remained under investigation; law enforcement were charged with regard to one case, and 53 percent of officers involved in fatal shootings had been cleared.

On June 4, police in Edmundston, New Brunswick, killed indigenous woman Chantel Moore during a welfare check on her. On June 12, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) killed indigenous man Rodney Levi after they were called to remove him from an event at a pastor’s house in a community in New Brunswick. Provincial government investigations into both cases were in progress at year’s end.

In June, two RCMP officers were charged with criminal negligence resulting in death for their roles in the fatal shooting of Clayton Crawford at a highway rest area in 2018. Police sought to interview Crawford as a witness in a case. He was killed when police shot into his moving vehicle.

There were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.

The law prohibits such practices. In April the government announced it would not appeal the Supreme Court’s March 2019 ruling that solitary confinement of longer than 15 days constituted cruel and unusual punishment, and the prohibition against use of solitary confinement went into effect. In June, however, the Office of the Correctional Investigator, a federal prison ombudsman, determined federal prisons utilized solitary confinement as a means of controlling or preventing coronavirus outbreaks within prisons. In August prison advocacy groups stated that delays in furnishing a federal oversight panel with data on segregation practices implemented in federal prisons in lieu of solitary confinement made it impossible to determine whether the government adhered to the law. In the same month, the Ontario Human Rights Commission filed suit against the province, alleging it failed to respect its commitments to end use of solitary confinement in the provincial correctional system for persons with mental health disabilities.

Impunity was not a significant problem in the security forces. Seven provinces had civilian units to investigate killings by police officers and complaints against police actions, and two provinces and three territories called in investigators from other police forces to investigate incidents involving their officers.

There were some reports that prison and detention center measures designed to control the spread of coronavirus raised human rights concerns.

Physical Conditions: There were no major concerns in prisons and detention centers regarding physical conditions or inmate abuse. Adults and juveniles were held separately, although minors were held with their parents in immigration detention centers as an alternative to separating families.

In April and June, the federal Office of the Correctional Investigator reported that certain prison measures designed to control the spread of the coronavirus, including nearly total confinement to inmates’ cells and lack of ability to communicate with the outside world, violated prisoners’ human rights and could not be justified under federal and international law despite the public health crisis.

Administration: Independent authorities investigated credible allegations of mistreatment and documented the results of such investigations in a publicly accessible manner, although such investigations slowed starting in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Independent Monitoring: The government permitted visits by independent nongovernmental human rights observers, although such visits were largely curtailed starting in March due to prison visitation restrictions put in place in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention and provides for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of his or her arrest or detention in court. The government generally observed these requirements.

Authorities generally relied upon warrants in the apprehension of persons. A judge may issue a warrant if satisfied a criminal offense might have been committed. A person arrested for a criminal offense has the right to a prompt, independent judicial determination of the legality of the detention. Authorities respected this right, although court operations were disrupted starting in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, which reduced prompt access to the judicial system. Authorities provided detainees with timely information on the reason for their arrest and provided prompt access to a lawyer of the detainee’s choice, or, if the detainee was indigent, a lawyer was provided by the state. Bail was generally available. Authorities may hold persons under preventive detention for up to seven days, subject to periodic judicial review.

The law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected judicial independence and impartiality, although public trials were suspended starting in March due to the coronavirus pandemic and resumed beginning in July.

The law provides for the right to a fair and public trial, and the independent judiciary generally enforced this right prior to the start of the pandemic, when public trials across the country were temporarily suspended as a public health measure. Aside from the pandemic, trials occur before a judge alone or, in more serious cases, before a judge and jury. Defendants have the right to a timely trial, to be present at their trial, and to consult with an attorney of their choice in a timely manner. The government provides an attorney at public expense if needed when defendants face serious criminal charges, and defendants may confront or question witnesses against them and present witnesses and evidence on their behalf. Defendants and their attorneys generally had adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense. Defendants also enjoy a presumption of innocence, the right to be informed promptly and in detail of the charges against them (with free interpretation as necessary), the right not to be compelled to testify or confess guilt, and the right of appeal.

There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.

There is an independent and impartial judiciary in civil matters and access to a domestic court to bring a suit seeking damages for, or cessation of, a human rights violation. Remedies can be monetary, declaratory, or injunctive. Federal or provincial human rights commissions may also hear alleged human rights violations. Individuals may also bring human rights complaints to the United Nations or Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Civil judicial procedures were particularly impacted by the pandemic, as courts prioritized criminal cases where possible.

Canada helped draft the Terezin Declaration and endorsed it in 2009. It also endorsed the Terezin Guidelines and Best Practices in 2010. Experts stated that Canada did not enact immovable property restitution laws because no such property was seized in the country during the Holocaust. According to the government, “the issue of displaced cultural property primarily affects those art museums and private collectors that acquired European fine and decorative art of unknown provenance from the period of 1933-1945.” The government’s Canadian Heritage Information Network hosts an online database known as Artefacts Canada, which contains five million object records and one million images from Canadian museums. Both museum professionals and the general public can access the database, which may assist museum professionals and Holocaust survivors and their heirs in identifying confiscated or looted movable property.

The Department of State’s Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act report to Congress, released publicly on July 29, 2020, can be found at https://www.state.gov/reports/just-act-report-to-congress/.

f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence

The law prohibits such actions, and there were no reports that the government failed to respect these prohibitions.