The Nauru government has announced that the island’s Parliament this month passed a number of laws to bring the nation up to international human rights standards.
A new act replaces a former criminal code that dated back to 1899 and was based on old Queensland laws.
The law reforms come after a number of incidents at the Australian refugees’ detention centre, which is based there, focused international attention on Nauru.
The revised laws state that suicide is no longer an offence and is considered “more a mental health issue rather than a criminal law issue”, the government said in a statement.
Homosexuality is no longer a criminal offence.
The archaic Queensland criminal code derived its anti-homosexuality laws – “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” – from the British 1860 anti-sodomy laws, which were exported to Australia in the Victorian era.
In addition, the law reforms broaden the definition of rape to include marital rape, and introduces the offence of stalking.
The death penalty has been removed as a punishment from Nauru’s statute books, the government has said, as has hard labour and solitary confinement.
Slavery has been criminalised, as well as child labour, and “forcing a child to marry another person in exchange for a material benefit”.
Abortion remains illegal when not part of a “lawful medical procedure”.
Source
- www.smh.com.au
- theguardian.com
- Image: radionz.co.nz