Today's AGE editorial:
The regrettable case of Vivian Alvarez Solon
May 14, 2005
The cases of Vivian Alvarez Solon and Cornelia Rau are unhappy addendums to the stories of those souls trapped in mandatory detention.
What happened to Vivian Alvarez Solon before she appeared at Lismore Base Hospital in 2001 is unclear. She was treated for serious injuries that afflict her still: she can walk with a crutch but often uses a wheelchair and the use of her fingers and one arm is limited. Sadly, her trauma also appears to have affected her memory: she says she wants to see her family but cannot remember who they are. This combination of physical weakness and mental confusion possibly explains how it is that Ms Alvarez Solon, a 42-year-old Australian citizen, accepted her fate: to live for four years among the dying at the Mother Teresa Missionaries of Charity hospice in the Philippines city of Olongapo.
How she came to be deported from Australia and separated from her children, one of whom has been in foster care for four years as a result, is a matter the Australian Government has yet to explain. Her story, as it has been reported so far, raises a number of questions. How is it that she was deemed to be an illegal immigrant three days after being listed as a missing person by Queensland police? What mechanism determined that this injured woman, with no known family or resources, should be handed over to Catholic nuns and how is it that, once she had been accepted into their care, the Australian Government was not able to find her? As long ago as August 2003, Queensland police realised Ms Alvarez Solon had been deported but authorities say they were not able to locate her in the Philippines.
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has pithily summed up Ms Alvarez Solon's history: "There's a woman who was clearly in need of help and who through, I think it's fair to say, no fault of her own ended up in an immigration detention facility and clearly didn't have the capacity to explain to people who she was. And that is a tragic situation."
It is important that the questions regarding Ms Alvarez Solon's deportation be answered, but the case also raises larger concerns. Like Cornelia Rau, the mentally ill Australian resident who was wrongly detained in the Baxter detention centre, when Ms Alvarez Solon came to the attention of the Immigration Department she was incapable of explaining herself and defending her rights. This inability has had tragic consequences, not only for her but for her children. The failure of authorities to provide proper care and protection for a woman who desperately needed their help is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of her story. When the Cornelia Rau case came to light, Prime Minister John Howard said he could not guarantee other Australians had not been wrongly detained by immigration authorities. Now that it has become apparent that Ms Rau was not an isolated case, the need for an open, public inquiry is even more pressing. Former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer, who has been investigating the circumstances leading to Ms Rau's detention, has been asked to widen his inquiry after the Alvarez Solon revelations. But Mr Palmer's explorations will remain private, which they should not be. Mr Palmer does not have the power to subpoena witnesses and the people who do speak to him do not have legal protection. This necessarily limits Mr Palmer's effectiveness. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said this week that a number of state public servants were reluctant to appear before Mr Palmer, fearing the legal consequences.
The inquiry as it stands appears expedient and so runs the risk of being dismissed as an empty political exercise. On the evidence so far, it seems that the Immigration Department has been unwilling to recognise the needs of the mentally ill, a failure from which tragic mistakes have flowed. A thorough and independent inquiry may go some way to explaining how and why this has come to be the case, and so be a catalyst for change.
The cases of Vivian Alvarez Solon and Cornelia Rau are unhappy addendums to the stories of those souls who are trapped in mandatory detention. As The Age has argued before, mandatory detention is a flawed policy that should be abandoned. Detainees are deprived of basic human rights and held in conditions that threaten their mental health. The Rau and Alvarez Solon cases suggest there may be an unhealthy link between mandatory detention and the department's failure to treat two confused and vulnerable women with simple kindness.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Editorial/The-regrettable-case-of-Vivian-Alvarez-Solon/2005/05/13/1115843369186.html?oneclick=true
