\n<\/p>\n
Millions of dollars in compensation could be paid out to more than 350 unlawful non-citizens held in indefinite detention after the high court ruled against the Australian government.<\/p>\n
The ruling marks another blow for the Albanese government after its requirement that released members of the NZYQ cohort must wear ankle monitoring bracelets and abide by curfews was struck down as unconstitutional earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Human rights lawyers and refugee advocacy groups have lauded the \u201cforeseeable\u201d decision as a \u201csignificant outcome\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the full bench of the high court ruled unanimously against the federal government\u2019s attempt to mount a defence against a damages claim brought by an Austrian citizen, Safwat Abdel-Hady, paving the way for potentially hundreds more cases.<\/p>\n
Abdel-Hady was unlawfully held in immigration detention for an 18-month period between 28 July 2022 and 13 February 2024 because there was \u201cno real prospect\u201d of his removal due to his health conditions, the federal circuit court found in June 2024.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the businessman had argued he should not have been detained by authorities using the precedent established in the 2004 high court case of Al-Kateb, which authorised indefinite detention of non-citizens without a valid visa even in circumstances where it is impossible to deport them.<\/p>\n
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/span><\/p>\n The ruling was overturned in a landmark decision in November 2023, brought by a stateless Rohingya man, known as NZYQ, triggering the release of hundreds of non-citizens who couldn\u2019t be removed from Australia because they were refugees or stateless.<\/p>\n The commonwealth had attempted to defend against Abdel-Hady\u2019s damages claims using a common law defence \u2013 that it was following the precedent set out by the high court in the 2004 Al-Kateb ruling.<\/p>\n All seven high court justices ruled against the commonwealth, with Justice Michelle Gordon saying it would \u201csignificantly undermine the ability of a person to obtain redress where the executive exceeds its authority\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThat door should remain closed,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n A government spokesperson said: \u201cThe Commonwealth notes the decision of the high court and is carefully considering the judgment and its implications.\u201d<\/p>\n Greg Barns SC, a spokesperson for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, said he estimated the bill for the case could \u201crun into the tens of millions of dollars\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPreviously, in 2017, the Commonwealth government agreed to pay $70m (plus costs) to settle a class action involving detainees on Manus Island. There have also, post the Tampa incident in 2001, been numerous claims brought by individual asylum seekers for mental and physical harm \u2013 with the Commonwealth having to pay compensation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is another reason why mandatory detention must cease immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre\u2019s deputy chief executive, Jana Favero, said advocates had always insisted indefinite detention was \u201charmful\u201d and \u201ccomes at the cost of people\u2019s health, their mental health, and their wellbeing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a significant outcome, because it paves the way for people to finally access justice for the cruelty inflicted on them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cFamilies have been separated, children have been robbed of their childhoods and there are thousands of people who are still living with the consequences of having years of their lives stolen from them.\u201d<\/p>\n The human rights lawyer Alison Battisson welcomed the court\u2019s judgment, saying she already had clients waiting in the wings.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government must now face up to the fact that they have participated in a system, and fought to keep it going, that will now cost the Australian taxpayer millions in compensation. This result was foreseeable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Albanese government last year signed a $2.5bn deal with Nauru to remove members of the NZYQ-affected cohort to the tiny Pacific island.<\/p>\n Twelve men have been sent to the island with 30-year visas while more than 30 others have been returned to immigration detention pending their removal to Nauru, according to the home affairs department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Millions of dollars in compensation could be paid out to more than 350 unlawful non-citizens held in indefinite detention after the high court ruled against the Australian government. The ruling marks another blow for the Albanese government after its requirement that released members of the NZYQ cohort must wear ankle monitoring bracelets and abide by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2917,346,2059,3021,160,856,7570,2984,1668,949,2081,6292,988,693,4823],"class_list":{"0":"post-50209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-asylum","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australian","11":"tag-compensation","12":"tag-court","13":"tag-detention","14":"tag-dollars","15":"tag-governments","16":"tag-held","17":"tag-high","18":"tag-immigration","19":"tag-indefinite","20":"tag-loss","21":"tag-millions","22":"tag-noncitizens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}