Australia’s Interpretative Declaration on Article 18
Australia made an Interpretative Declaration in respect of Article 18 when it ratified the CRPD:
Australia recognises the rights of persons with disability to liberty of movement, to freedom to choose their residence and to nationality, on an equal basis with others. Australia further declares its understanding that the Convention does not create a right for a person to enter or remain in a country of which he or she is not a national, nor impact on Australia’s health requirements for non-nationals seeking to enter or remain in Australia, where these requirements are based on legitimate, objective and reasonable criteria.
The Interpretative Declaration preserves Australia’s current legislative and administrative approach to processing visa applications. The Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (Migration Act) and the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) (Migration Regulations) control the entry and stay in Australia, of non-citizens and prescribe the selection criteria and processes for all visa applications. The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (DDA) provides an exemption for certain provisions within the Migration Act, and subordinate legislation under this Act, and for the actions required by this legislation. This includes the health requirement contained in this legislation.
Almost all visa applicants must satisfy the health requirement in order to be granted a visa.308 Although the health requirement does not directly discriminate against people with disability, it is much more likely that people with disability will be unable to meet it. To meet the health requirement the applicant must:
... not have a disease or condition which would be likely to require health care or community services; meet the medical criteria for the provision of a community service, result in significant cost to the Australian community in the areas of health care and community services; or prejudice the access on an Australian citizen or permanent resident to health care or community services, regardless of whether the applicant would use those services.309
The health requirement is “unable to satisfy the equal protection obligation under Article 5 of the UN CRPD”.310 The rationale behind the DDA exemption is that if the Migration Act were not exempt, some of the criteria for assessing visa applications may be discriminatory under the DDA.311 In particular, without this exemption the stringent health requirements would not be compatible with the DDA.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has expressed concern about the discriminatory effect the health requirement has on refugee and offshore humanitarian visa applications, commenting that:
“The present operation of the health requirement is discriminatory in effect and endangers a number of other human rights norms.” To that extent, Australia presently falls short of its international obligations.312
The Interpretative Declaration and the DDA exemption of aspects of the Migration Act are indicative of Australia’s “awareness of the dissonance between the CRPD and the health rules”,313 and the fact that the health requirement “can no longer be said to be based on ‘legitimate, objective and reasonable’ criteria”.314
