Offshore detention high court challenge to look at Australia's rush to change laws
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Version 0 of 1. The federal government’s rushed changes to the law to fortify offshore detention would be “the subject of much discussion” in a high court hearing beginning on Wednesday, according to an advocate for the asylum seeker bringing the challenge. The hearing in Canberra – set down for two days – was expected to focus on the constitutionality of the federal government’s funding of regional detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. Related: Return asylum seekers to offshore detention 'as soon as possible', officials urged The Human Rights Law Centre is bringing a series of challenges on behalf of more than 200 people who have been brought to Australia from Nauru and Manus – often for medical treatment or to have a baby – and are now facing return to the regional centres. The centre’s director of legal advocacy, Daniel Webb, described the circumstances of the Bangladeshi woman in the lead case. “The case that is before the court today is being run on behalf of an incredibly vulnerable woman,” he told reporters outside the high court. “She has been detained on Nauru previously and she has been brought back to Australia for urgent medical treatment. This woman has a 10-month-old baby daughter. She is terrified that her and her baby daughter will be sent back to an offshore environment that has already caused her a great deal of harm.” Webb welcomed the move towards having an open centre on Nauru, saying the court case appeared to be the catalyst for the newly announced change. But he said the shift did not affect the “fundamental justice” inherent in the system of leaving people languishing indefinitely in offshore detention. Asked whether the federal government’s retrospective changes to the Migration Act in June weakened the case, Webb said the question before the court now was whether that was a constitutionally valid law. The Labor party supported the rushed bill. “I daresay the effect of the changes on the case will be subject of much discussion,” Webb said. “The case looks at the risk of future detention but it also examines the lawfulness of past detention. “Irrespective of these changes, there remain important and untested constitutional questions about the power of the Australian government to pay and to control the detention of innocent people in other countries.” Webb said Australian law clearly gave the government some power to detain people in Australia and remove people from the country “but it is an altogether different thing to fund and control the detention of those people in other countries. It is that funding and that detention that this case challenges.” He said the challenge was linked to about 200 other cases, for which almost identical cases had been filed. The lead case was being heard first,and would have implications for the others. The other 200 people remained in Australia at present, Webb said. On the eve of the hearing, Guardian Australia revealed that an email sent in June showed a government official was worried about more asylum seekers joining the case and urged the return of people to Manus and Nauru “as soon as possible”. The treasurer, Scott Morrison, who was the architect of the government’s Operation Sovereign Borders policy when he held the immigration portfolio, said the Coalition’s hardline measures worked. Related: Nauru refugee 'release' shows detention and drawn-out processing were never necessary | Joyce Chia “Our border protection regime has been incredibly successful,” he told ABC Radio on Wednesday. “It’s saved lives, it’s ended the terrible cost that was being incurred, and has restored integrity to our refugee and humanitarian program. “They are all important outcomes and anything that would put that at risk would greatly concern me and, I think, greatly concern many Australians. “There will always be more work to do, and I commend [immigration minister] Peter Dutton for the job he’s done in continuing that program, but … we have a border protection regime which ended the deaths, and I don’t want to see that happen again.” |