Australia’s highest court yesterday ruled that the detention of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka on the high seas for almost a month was lawful, in a win for the government’s tough immigration policy.
The Australian High Court ruling means the group of 157 ethnic Tamils, who were picked up by an Australian customs boat in June last year after setting out from India, are not entitled to seek compensation.
Lawyers for the asylum seekers were disappointed with the decision, but said it was not unanimous and said the case succeeded in drawing attention to Australia’s secretive “Operation Sovereign Borders” activities.
Photo: Reuters
The UN refugee agency, which has criticized Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers, made submissions in the case.
“It took this case for the government to finally break its secrecy and confirm that it was detaining 157 people — including 50 children as young as one — on a boat somewhere on the high seas,” Human Rights Law Centre executive director Hugh de Kretser told reporters.
The case also prompted the government to promise not to return the group, who are being held in a detention center on the South Pacific island of Nauru, to India or Sri Lanka.
Australian Minister of Immigration Peter Dutton said the decision vindicated government policies.
He said that only one boat had reached Australia since the policies were implemented a year-and-a-half ago and authorities were seeing a decrease in the number of boats attempting the perilous voyage.
“We have stopped people drowning at sea, we have stopped the boats and this government is absolutely resolved the operation will continue,” Dutton told reporters in Canberra.
Australia received 16,000 asylum applications last year, just less than 0.5 percent of the 3.6 million lodged worldwide, UN figures show.
However, it is a polarizing political issue.
Conservative Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott campaigned on a vow to “turn back the boats” before winning elections last year.
Following the High Court case, the government revised its immigration laws to reduce its obligations to follow international law and restrict the oversight of Australian courts.
The High Court’s 4-3 split in favor of the government meant the judgement needed to be analyzed to determine its full impact, lawyers said.
“There are points of law in which the majority agree with the minority,” said George Newhouse, a lawyer for the group.
“We need to distil those decisions and there may well not be a blank check to the government to do whatever they want to people in this position,” he added.
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