(b) Access to lawyers during administrative stage of the refugee process; The State party's admissibility observations and counsel’s comments the (c) Access to lawyers during the judicial review stage of the refugee process; in this context, it is noted that the frequent transfers of the author to detention facilities far away from major urban centres vastly compounded the difficulties in providing legal advice to him. Thus, Port Hedland, where A. was held for over two years, is expensive to reach by air, and the nearest major town, Perth, is over 2,000 km away. Because of the costs and logistical problems involved, it was difficult to find competent Refugee Council of Australia lawyers to take up the case. 4.1 In its submission under rule 91, the State party supplements the facts as presented by the author, and provides a chronology of the litigation in which the author has been, and continues to be, involved. It notes that, after the final decision to reject the author's application for refugee status was taken in December 1992, the author continued to take legal proceedings challenging the validity of that decision. Detention after December 1992 is said to have been exclusively the result of legal challenges by the author. In this context, the State party recalls that, by a letter of 2 November 1993, the Minister for Immigration offered the author the opportunity, in the event of his voluntary return to Cambodia, of applying for (re)entry to Australia after 12 months, on a permanent visa under the Special Assistance Category. The State party further adds that the author's wife's application for refugee status has been approved and that, as a result, the author was released from custody on 21 January 1994 and will be allowed to remain in Australia. 3.7 Counsel contends that the serious delays on the part of the State party in determining the author's application for refugee status constitute a breach of article 14, paragraph 3 (c), particularly given the fact that he remained in detention for much of the process. 3.8 It is contended that, as A. was detained arbitrarily, he qualifies for compensation under article 9, paragraph 5, of the Covenant. Counsel submits that "compensation" in this provision must be understood to mean "just and adequate" compensation, but adds that the State party has removed any right to compensation for illegal detention by a legislative amendment to the Migration Act. He notes that as a result of the judgement of the High Court of Australia in A's case, further proceedings were filed in the High Court on behalf of the Pender Bay detainees including the author - seeking damages for unlawful detention. On 24 December 1992, Parliament added Section 54RA(1)-(4) to division 4B of the Migration Act according to counsel in direct response to the High Court's findings in A.'s case and the imminence of the filing of possible claims for compensation for illegal detention. In paragraph 3, the new provision restricts compensation for unlawful detention to the symbolic sum of one dollar per day. It is submitted that the author is entitled to just and adequate compensation for (a) pecuniary losses, namely, the loss of the boat in which he arrived in Australia; (b) non-pecuniary losses, including injury to liberty, reputation, and mental suffering; and (c) aggravated and exemplary damages based, in particular, on the length of the detention and its conditions. The symbolic sum the author might be entitled to under Section 54RA (3) of division 4B would not meet the criteria for compensation under article 9, paragraph 5. 4.2 The State party concedes the admissibility of the communication in so far as it alleges that the author's detention was "arbitrary" within the meaning of article 9, paragraph 1. It adds, however, that it strongly contests on the merits that the author's detention was "arbitrary", and that it contained elements of "inappropriateness, injustice and lack of predictability". 4.3 The State party challenges the admissibility of other elements of the complaint relating to article 9, paragraph 1. In this context, it notes that the communication is inadmissible ratione materiae, to the extent that it seeks to rely on customary international law or provisions of other international instruments such as the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The State party argues that the Committee is competent only to determine whether there have been breaches of any of the rights set forth in the Covenant; it is not permissible to rely on customary international law or other international instruments as the basis of a claim. 4.4 Similarly, the State party claims that counsel's general claim that Australian policy of detaining boat people is contrary to article 9, paragraph 1, is inadmissible, as the Committee is not competent to review in abstracto particular government policies or to rely on the application of such policies to find breaches of the Covenant. Therefore, the communication is considered inadmissible to the extent that it invites the Committee to determine generally whether the policy of detaining boat people is contrary to article 9, paragraph 1. 3.9 Finally, counsel argues that the automatic detention of boat people of primarily Asian origin, on the sole basis that they meet all the criteria of division 4B of the Migration Act 1958, constitutes discrimination on the basis of "other status" under article 2, paragraph 1, of the Covenant, "other status" being the status of boat people. 92