"Whether a prisoner is Nelson Mandela or alleged to be a neo-Nazi or anyone else, there are certain basic human rights that must be adhered to in our prisons."
That is what an ACT Supreme Court judge said on Thursday as she declared Canberra's jail had breached a prisoner's human rights by denying him access to an adequate place to exercise.
Nathan James Davidson, 38, spent years in the Alexander Maconochie Centre after being jailed for drug trafficking and receiving stolen property.
Davidson, who has "Aryan" tattooed on his right arm and who has been photographed wearing a United Patriots Front shirt, spent a total of nine weeks in the jail's "management unit" during his sentence.
He was held in solitary or separate confinement while he was kept in that unit for disciplinary reasons, and was granted access to a small courtyard connected to the rear of his cell.
The courtyard was "enclosed by four walls and a mesh ceiling", and Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson, who inspected it, said it gave "the impression of being indoors and, specifically, of being in a cell".
Davidson was not permitted to use a larger, purpose-built exercise yard located outdoors. This decision left him feeling, as he put it, "shit".
He therefore launched legal proceedings against the director-general of the ACT government's Justice and Community Safety Directorate, which is responsible for running the prison.
Davidson complained that the directorate's practice of allocating management unit inmates the rear courtyard for exercise did not comply with its obligations under the ACT's Corrections Management Act and that it was unlawful under the territory's Human Rights Act.
He sought a variety of declarations about the validity of this practice and also asked that his jail sentence be backdated by the 63 days for which his human rights had been breached.
Justice Loukas-Karlsson on Thursday declined to backdate the 38-year-old's sentence, but she did make four declarations.
These included that access to the rear courtyard of management unit cells for exercise did not comply with the Corrections Management Act, and that the directorate had breached Davidson's human rights.
"[Davidson] correctly submitted that in denying [him] access to the open air and an adequate space to exercise, the [directorate] had acted in a way that was incompatible with [his] human rights," Justice Loukas-Karlsson said in an 83-page judgement.
The judge added that when the decision was made to deny Davidson access to the jail's general exercise yard, the directorate was required to give proper consideration to the inmate's right to "humane treatment while deprived of liberty" and act compatibly with it.
"I therefore find that the [directorate] has acted inconsistently with [Davidson's] human right ... and has contravened its obligation in ... the Human Rights Act," she said.
Justice Loukas-Karlsson ordered the directorate to pay the legal costs Davidson had incurred in bringing the proceedings.
