Indefinite immigration detention ruled unlawful in landmark Australian high court decision

Sometimes you need to take a hard line. I get it.

But indefinite detention is fucking barbaric. And I hope that those affected now have legal recourse due to this decision.

It was never the only solution. It was an expedient solution, and it’s wise to remember that when the architects of that shit show are in power and need to make hard decisions. Because the decision will be the one that maximises their political leverage - it won’t be the one that addresses say…catastrophic climate change, or over irrigation in the Murray basin, or falling education standards, or….

No shit - it's disgraceful it's taken this long as we've pretended the UN refugee convention isn't a thing, but this is some great news.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The high court ruled in favour of NZYQ, a stateless Rohingya man, who faced the prospect of detention for life because no country had agreed to resettle him, due to a criminal conviction for sexual intercourse with a 10-year-old minor.

The high court declared that because NZYQ had been detained when there was “no real prospect of his removal from Australia becoming practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future” his detention was unlawful.

Earlier, the solicitor general, Stephen Donaghue, warned that such a ruling would trigger “undefendable” compensation claims and the release of “undesirable” people into the community.

Donaghue submitted that the four justices in the majority of Al-Kateb were aware of the “harsh” possibility of lengthy detention, including for stateless persons who cannot be deported.

Several judges quibbled with Donaghue’s emphasis on NZYQ’s conviction, with Justice Robert Beech-Jones suggesting the constitutional argument has “nothing to do” with the sexual assault.

Donaghue urged the court not to “radically disturb” the legal architecture, noting that the Migration Act requires detention of aliens pending deportation.

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