Date
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Presenter
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Details
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| 16-17 May |
Professor Bernadette McSherry |
Australian & New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (ANZAPPL)
Autumn Symposium: Control and the Professionals
Topic: Agents of State Control: The Ethics of Risk Assessment Testimony for Preventive Detention Schemes
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| 31 May to 6 Jun |
Professor Bernadette McSherry |
Greek/Australian International Legal and Medical Conference
12th Annual Conference: Our Challenged World: How can Law and Medicine Respond?
Topic: Rethinking Mental Health Laws: International Trends [PDF 91kb]
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| 31 May to 6 Jun |
Ronli Sifris |
Greek/Australian International Legal and Medical Conference
12th Annual Conference: Our Challenged World: How can Law and Medicine Respond?
Topic: Laws prohibiting abortion: A violation of the right to health?
This article argues that restricting access to abortion services violates the international legal right to health.
The article begins by discussing the nature and sources of the right to health under international law. It then proceeds to consider the development of the right to reproductive health as part of the general right to health. The central proposition of the article is that the right to access abortion services forms a part of the right to reproductive health. Therefore, abortion restrictive regulation violates the right to reproductive health as part of the general right to health. Further, not only do laws restricting access to abortion services prima facie violate the right to health, but they also violate the requirement that this right be implemented without discrimination of any kind.
Photos from the conference
|
| 24-26 Jun |
Professor Bernadette McSherry
Keynote Speaker |
International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services
9th Annual Conference:Facing the Future: Forensic Mental Health Services in Change
Topic: Managing Fear: Preventive detention and the role of mental health professionals
|
| 24-26 Jun |
Jamie Walvisch |
International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services
9th Annual Conference: Facing the Future: Forensic Mental Health Services in Change
Topic: Just Desserts for the “Mad Bomber”: A Coherent Approach to Sentencing People With Mental Illnesses [PDF 89kb]
|
| 16-17 Jul |
Annegret Kämpf
(with Patrick McGee, Office of the Public Advocate) |
Australian Community Support Organisation (ASCO)
4th Forensic Disabilities Conference: Disability and Justice: Many faces, equal rights?
Topic: Legal Capacity in the International Human Rights Framework
When Australia ratified the United Nation Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it accepted to be bound to a new international human rights standard. The Disabilities Convention provides in its Article 12 (2) that “States Parties shall recognise that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life”.
The Convention facilitates that persons with disabilities are assumed to possess legal capacity as a matter of equal recognition before the law and are central to being recognised as a bearer of rights. The implication of this provision is significant - not only for people with cognitive disabilities and a forensic history, but also the services that support them and the community at large.
Beyond this, Article 12 clarifies safeguards to persons with disabilities exercising legal capacity and accessing the support they may require to do so. It establishes an unprecedented degree of respect to self-direction in decision-making with an aim to carefully balance the twin issues of protection and autonomy within the context of legal capacity as a matter of equality before the law.
This paper will address what framework the Disabilities Convention establishes for treatment decisions within restrictive settings. It will assess the Disabilities Convention’s move away from substituted decision-making to supported decision-making and what supported decision-making may look like within a forensic setting.
|
| 7-10 Sep |
Dr Penny Weller |
Faculty of Medicine, Monash University
International Conference: Children and the Law: International approaches to children and their vulnerabilities
Topic: Young people, mental health and human rights: Assessing mental health law with a human rights lens
|
| 15-20 Sep |
Dr Joanna Kyriakakis |
China Law Society
XXIVth IVR World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy: Global Harmony and Rule of Law
Topic: Mental Impairment as a Defence in International Criminal Law
Co-ordinator for Special Workshop on Defenses and Punishment in International Criminal Law
Program of Special Workshops and Working Groups
|
| 22-25 Nov |
Professor Bernadette McSherry
(with Professor Patrick Keyzer, Bond University) |
Australian & New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC)
22nd Annual Conference: Crime and Justice Challenges in the 21st Century: Victims, Offenders and Communities
Topic: Preventive Detention of Sex Offenders: Themes from the Case Law
The Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003 (Qld) represented the first attempt in Australia to detain certain sex offenders on the grounds of ‘dangerousness’ after the expiry of the offender’s sentence. In 2004, a majority of the High Court in Fardon v Attorney-General (Qld) (2004) 223 CLR 575 upheld the validity of the Queensland Act and similar schemes now exist in Western Australia and New South Wales.
While preventive detention schemes may aid in protecting the community through the deprivation of liberty of certain offenders, they clearly raise human rights concerns, have the potential to lead to large increases in the prison population, are costly and offer no guarantee that the overall incidence of sexual or violent crimes will be reduced.
This paper analyses some of the themes emerging from the developing case law in this area. It will focus in particular on recent decisions by the Supreme Court of Western Australia and compare the emerging themes of these cases with those in other jurisdictions.
|
| 26-29 Nov |
Professor Bernadette McSherry |
Australian & New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (ANZAPPL)
29th Annual Congress: Families in Law: Investigation, Intervention and Protection
Topic: Protecting the Interests of Carers and Family Members through Mental Health Legislation: Recent Trends
Since the 1980s, Mental Health Acts have generally referred to the relevant rights of individuals with mental illnesses. More recently, the interests of carers and family members have been the subject of law reform endeavours.
This paper outlines recent legislative attempts to ensure the views of carers and family members are considered in decisions to treat those with mentalillnesses on an involuntary basis. The provision of information to and the inclusion of carers and family members in Tribunal hearings.
This paper will also present the findings of a series of interviews carried out with representatives of carer organisations across Australia. Common themes will be discussed as to the role of the law in ensuring that the views of carers and family members are heard throughout the civil commitment process.
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| 26-29 Nov |
Annegret Kämpf
|
Australian & New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (ANZAPPL)
29th Annual Congress: Families in Law: Investigation, Intervention and Protection
Topic: Illness, Abuse within Families and Human Rights
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10 Dec
|
Annegret Kämpf
|
Victorian Legal Assistance Forum, Melbourne
Topic: The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and Access to Justice [Invited forum speech]
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