Page 365 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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The bill proposes that people making prenatal reports will be protected from civil and criminal liability, as currently exists for reporters of all other child protection reports. The bill proposes to expand the offence for people making dishonest child protection reports to include reporters making prenatal reports. This will ensure that reporters are adequately deterred from making dishonest and vexatious prenatal reports.
The government considers that prenatal reporting is necessary and proportionate to the objective served by the provisions in reducing the likelihood of future abuse or neglect of children.
In relation to the search and seizure scheme as outlined in the amendment bill, the search provisions in the act require simultaneous amendment with the standing orders to ensure that searches of children and young people at Quamby are done in a way that is compatible with the Human Rights Act. The bill establishes that the proposed search and seizure scheme will apply to children and young people lawfully detained in the youth detention centre. It will not apply to a child or young person who is subject to a therapeutic protection order or who is living at the shelter known as Marlow Cottage. There has been further policy work on a revised search and seizure scheme for children and young people who are subject to therapeutic protection; this is included in the exposure draft of the Children and Young People Bill currently subject to community consultation.
Searches of children and young people who are remanded or committed to a youth detention centre are necessary to prevent the entry of unauthorised items that may harm another person within the youth detention centre, including the detained child, another young person or employees who work at the detention centre.
The Human Rights Act provides at section 8 that everyone has the right to life. Public authorities have a positive duty to protect the life of a person in the care or custody of the territory The search and seizure scheme, involving the use of force in certain circumstances, will protect against the unlawful admittance of contraband which could threaten the safety of children and young people detained at the youth detention centre.
Strip searches and searches of body cavities are inherently degrading and therefore engage principles of human rights, in particular the right to humane treatment, the right to privacy and protection of the child. To ensure that searches of detainees are proportionate to the necessary aim of the searches, the bill introduces a number of obligations for persons conducting or assisting with a search. These obligations are introduced to ensure that the children and young people who are searched are treated humanely and with respect for their inherent dignity, and are protected from unlawful or arbitrary interferences with their privacy.
The Standing Committee on Legal Affairs commented on the bill in scrutiny report 37. The committee queried whether it is a reasonable and proportionate intrusion on a pregnant woman’s right to privacy for the record of a prenatal report to be retained in government files. The committee also sought clarification about how clauses relating to meeting detainees’ medical needs and the searching of legally privileged material would operate, and queried whether the provisions were ambiguous. The committee
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