The ACT's prison breached the Human Rights Act by housing an inmate who was viciously bashed with sentenced criminals after the incident, a court has been told.
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Steven Freeman, 24, was treated in hospital after he was bashed unconscious in an almost-fatal attack in the Alexander Maconochie Centre several hours after he was remanded in custody in late April.
He suffered critical injuries and was placed in an induced coma for almost a week.
Freeman was locked up over a string of crimes and is suspected of crashing a stolen car that left a teenage girl with a broken back.
His violent bashing sparked calls from the Indigenous community for an independent inquiry, which has so far been resisted by the ACT government.
A CCTV camera was turned away from the front of Freeman's cell before the attack, a court was told last week.
Freeman's bail application, now his third bid for release, stalled again in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday.
Aboriginal Legal Service lawyer Michael Lalor accused the jail of breaching the Human Rights Act by holding Freeman in an area with sentenced prisoners after the attack.
He said under the act, an unsentenced inmate must be separated from convicted criminals except in exceptional circumstances.
"Mr Freeman is currently housed in a high-risk category which is really a jail within a jail for prisoners at risk from other prisoners in the ACT.
"I would submit it's not an exceptional circumstance."
Mr Lalor said evidence that had previously come before the court indicated his client was not segregated from convicted criminals and continued to be housed with sentenced prisoners.
"What we have are policies and procedures in the AMC that are in direct contravention of the Human Rights Act," he said.
Prosecutors said Freeman's defence team had not raised the alleged human rights violation until Friday's hearing.
They argued the assault was an exceptional circumstance and the defendant should remain behind bars.
The court heard Freeman had a "potential conflict" with two detainees being held in remand and his attackers still hadn't been identified.
Prison staff consulted with Indigenous elders after the bashing and decided the only place Freeman could be safe in the jail was in the section he was currently being held, prosecutors said.
Magistrate Peter Dingwall said it was appropriate to consider the human rights concerns as part of the bail application.
"It goes to the very core of the running of this institution and it goes to the core of human rights," he said.
The separation of unsentenced and sentenced prisoners was considered a key part of the ACT government's goal of a fully human rights-compliant prison.
But territory courts, in unrelated cases, have previously heard that chronic overcrowding at the prison has made that separation difficult.
Mr Dingwall adjourned the matter to give prosecutors time to gather evidence to prove their case.
Freeman will be back in court next Wednesday.
