Refugee policy tested in court

SYDNEY – Australia’s highest court has listened to the arguments and has reserved its judgement in a case that challenges the constitutionality of Canberra’s offshore detention of asylum seekers in the Pacific.

The two-day hearing was brought by the Human Rights Law Centre on behalf of 150 asylum seekers who were temporarily moved to Australia from Nauru for medical treatment.

The Centre’s director of legal advocacy, Daniel Webb, says Nauru’s recent move to open the centre there was a significant development in the case, but doesn’t address its fundamental aspects.

Webb says the families involved face a nervous wait for the court’s judgement.

“They live with the uncertainty of one day being uprooted and sent back to an offshore environment that’s already caused them a great deal of harm.

“And I think quite aside from the outcome of this case, Australia should not, as a matter of basic decency, warehouse anyone on a remote island.”

Webb says the outcome of the case could significantly impact Australia’s offshore detention policies.

The hearings have tested for the first time whether Australia has the legal right to participate in the offshore detention of asylum seekers – the backbone of its immigration policy for five years.

Nauru unexpectedly said on Monday that all 600 asylum seekers held there would be allowed to move freely around the island and that all their asylum applications would be processed this week.

Asylum seekers are a contentious political issue in Australia, although it has never received anywhere near the number of refugees now flooding into Europe.

Successive governments have vowed to stop asylum seekers reaching the mainland, turning boats back to Indonesia when it can and sending those it cannot for detention in camps on Manus island in impoverished Papua New Guinea and on Nauru.

Harsh conditions at the camps have been strongly criticised by the United Nations and rights groups.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last month said he was concerned about conditions in the camps but gave no indication of a major policy change.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Nauru’s decisions were unconnected to the High Court challenge.

No one processed at the Nauru or Papua New Guinea camps is eligible to be settled in Australia.