Manus refugees to be offered compensation

PAPUA NEW GUINEA – The lawyer representing refugees detained on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island says the government has indicated it will settle his clients’ claims for compensation.

The Supreme Court ruled in April their detention was illegal under a deal struck with Australia in 2013.

The lawyer, Ben Lomai, told Radio New Zealand’s Dateline Pacific he has refiled a Supreme Court application to resettle and compensate the refugees.

“The first order that we’re seeking is for the asylum seekers to be returned back to Australia,” Lomai said. “Secondly, if they could not be returned back for some reason, then to consider a third country.

“And we are seeking compensation as well for the asylum seekers. So those are in a nutshell the three major orders that we’re seeking and of course we are also seeking a time frame, one of which is for the governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea to come back to the court after 30 days to inform the court as to what they have done in terms of compliance with the orders.”

Lomai said he and his refugee clients were very much aware of the recent talk of resettling the asylum seekers detained offshore in third countries.

“But as you will note, that has not been confirmed yet at this stage. We’re happy, in fact, if there is such an arrangement in place.

“If indeed that arrangement is successful, of course we’ll need to seek instruction from our clients as to whether they are happy to go to a third country and I think they will be.

Lomai said they had been given that indication by the PNG government that they would address the issue of compensation.

“So the only outstanding issue will be an issue for compensation. We have already been advised that the state has offered to settle compensation, probably in lieu of the fact that they have now some arrangement in place for resettlement into a third country.

“That’s the proposition that has been put, but of course that will be a matter for the PNG government and the Australian government to talk under the terms of the 2013 memorandum of understanding because as agreed between these two governments that Australian government should be responsible for all costs associated with offshore processing.

Lomai said the application had already set out the amount of compensation per refugee?

“We want the best figure. As it is now, the law has already settled on 300 kina per day (US$90), but we will be asking for more per refugee and it depends on how long they have been detained. So it’s not like it’s a blanket amount and everybody will be getting that much.

“Obviously it will be on a case by case basis. If an asylum seeker who’s been detained for 100 days and if we apply the current rate it will be 300,000 kina or US$95,000.

Or if we ask for more, the court gives us 500,000 maybe half a million, or if the court gives us 1000 then it will be a million kina.”

- Dateline Pacific