CCPR/C/120/D/2798/2016 Covenant have been violated owing, inter alia, to the fact that she has been deprived of the right to raise her daughter, which has caused her great distress and suffering. 3.3 The author further claims that the State party has deprived her daughter of her right to liberty and security, as enshrined by article 9 (1) of the Covenant, as she was kept in detention against her will. The author maintains that her daughter is not mentally ill, has not broken any laws or committed any criminal or civil offence, and has not been convicted of any offence in a court of law. The author claims that her daughter’s wishes are being ignored and that her daughter is not permitted to see, speak or write to her. 3.4 The author maintains that her daughter’s rights under article 12 (1) of the Covenant have been violated since she does not have a right to liberty of movement within the State party and she does not have the freedom to choose her residence. If she did, she would leave the premises where she is being detained against her will and go to live with her mother. 3.5 The author also maintains that her rights and the rights of her daughter under article 14 (1) of the Covenant have been violated since they were not treated fairly by the courts. The evidence they submitted in the proceedings was generally given very little weight, if any, and the written evidence was not subjected to cross-examination. She submits that they were both branded as “mentally ill” during the Sydney District Court proceedings and that an expert report during the Court appeal proceedings labelled her as having a paranoid delusion about what the Department of Community Services had done to her and her daughter. The author maintains that their rights under article 14 (3) of the Covenant were violated since, throughout the court proceedings, her daughter could not choose her legal representative and her instructions to her legal representative were ignored, supposedly owing to her mental disability. The daughter was not allowed to give evidence in the proceedings, as required by the New South Wales Guardianship Act. Furthermore, the medical experts who interviewed her daughter and provided their reports to the courts were not independent of the Department. The author submits that her daughter did not trust them and refused to talk to the report writers. 3.6 The author maintains that her rights and her daughter’s rights under article 17 (1) of the Covenant have been violated since they were subjected to arbitrary/unlawful interference with their privacy and family life because of the “wrongful interference” of the Department of Community Services, which was carried out without legal grounds. 3.7 The author further claims that a violation of her rights and the rights of her daughter under article 23 (1) of the Covenant since the intervention of the State party destroyed the family unit that had consisted of the author, her daughter and other relatives. 3.8 The author submits that her daughter’s rights under article 24 (1) of the Covenant have been violated since, as a child with autism, she did not have equal protection of the law. She claims that the daughter’s status as a child with a disability was used as a vehicle by the State to discriminate against her. 3.9 Finally, the author claims that her rights under article 26 of the Covenant, to equality of treatment before the law and to equal protection of the law without any discrimination, have been violated. She also claims she has been discriminated against because of her mental, which in reality is only depression, and as a result she has been treated unfairly by the courts, where she has been denied procedural fairness and justice. 3.10 The author maintains that the key issues in the present case are her daughter’s preferences and whether she had the mental capacity to know what is in her own best interest. She considers that her daughter has the mental capacity to make decisions that are in her own best interests, despite the opinions of what she calls her daughter’s “carers/controllers”. State party’s observations on the admissibility 4.1 On 3 February 2017, the State party submitted its observations on the admissibility of the communication. It considers that the author’s allegations should be held inadmissible on various grounds. It submits that, for reasons of confidentiality of the situation under 5