In 2010 the Committee expressed concern at reports that asylum–seekers and undocumented migrants were being detained in correctional facilities with convicted prisoners and that the Immigration Act should be amended to reflect that this was inappropriate. However, concern has recently been expressed by civil society groups, interested in corrections facilities, that people charged with immigration offences such as refugees and migrants were now no longer housed separately at Auckland Central Prison but were being integrated with the general prison population. The Commission suggests that the Committee reinforces that if asylum seekers must be detained, they are held separately from convicted prisoners. ➢ Immigration Amendment Bill The Government has introduced an Amendment to the Immigration Act designed to address the risk of a mass arrival of illegal immigrants. Although the Explanatory Note asserts that the Bill “contains a range of measures to enhance New Zealand’s ability to deter people smuggling”, the legislation appears to be less concerned with the imposition of sanctions against people smugglers or illegal immigration than imposing discriminatory conditions on refugee claimants who arrive as part of a group. It does this by introducing a detention regime that not only infringes the Refugee Convention and arguably amounts to arbitrary detention under Art.9 (1) but operates in a discriminatory manner as it applies only to groups arriving in New Zealand other than in the course of a scheduled international service. When assessed against the international norms and standards, the policy is inappropriate and unjust. The Commission urges the Committee to recommend that the Bill be withdrawn. If it is passed into law by the time the Committee considers this list of issues, the Committee should recommend that it is amended to ensure that detention is only resorted to if necessary and that there are appropriate mechanisms and procedural safeguards in place for reviewing the situation of people deemed to be mass arrivals. ➢ Human rights and immigration Section 392 of the Immigration Act 2009 exempts the Act and immigration regulations and instructions made pursuant to it from the Human Rights Act and the jurisdiction of the Human Rights Commission as “immigration matters inherently involve different treatment on the basis of personal characteristics”48. In 2010 the Human Rights Committee recommended, in its concluding observations relating to New Zealand’s fifth periodic review under the ICCPR that the government should “consider extending the mandate of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission so that it can receive complaints of human rights violations related to immigration laws, policies and practices and report on them”.49 As the situation has not changed, the Commission urges the Committee to renew its request for the exclusion to be removed. Rights of the Child (Article 24) 48 49 Section 392 (3) IA 2009 CCPR/C/NZL/Q/5 at 4 Page 17 of 35