UN decision on Marlon Noble case: Imprisonment of an Aboriginal man with intellectual disability found unfit to stand trial in Western Australia

Abstract

On 23 September 2016, the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities found that the Australian government had breached its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The case against Australia was brought by Marlon Noble, an Aboriginal man with an intellectual disability who was charged with sexual assault but found unfit to stand trial under the Mentally Impaired Defendants Act 1996 (WA). He was imprisoned indefinitely in 2001 and has been held in civil detention in the community since 2012. This article analyses the current policy and legislative context in Western Australia on this issue and reflects on Australia’s previous responses to individual human rights complaints to UN Committees.