High Court challenge could result in 200 immigration detainees being released

Hoping history repeats in a new high stakes court battle, our clients liberty will be determined by this matter, and so will the fate of some 200 people who remain in immigration detention. In a landmark November judgment, the High Court ruled it was unlawful to indefinitely detain someone with no prospects of deportation. It led to the release of 150 detainees, many violent criminals. Now the courts considering whether this ruling should also apply to people who don’t cooperate with efforts to remove them. The Commonwealth should remain empowered to detain people who are in these circumstances. The case an Iranian man known as ASF 17 who arrived by boat a decade ago. He’s refusing to return, arguing he’ll be persecuted because he’s bisexual. His lawyer saying her client would rather be taken to Gaza. He’d have a better chance of not being killed there than in Iran. It certainly might be the case that people don’t want to go back home, but unless we have a legal obligation to protect them, then we don’t have an obligation to keep them here, the Commonwealth solicitor general questioned AS F-17’s credibility. And argued siding with him would open the floodgate for asylum claims. Your honours would be turning the Federal Court into a refugee tribunal. No decision from the High Court today extending a nervous wait for the Albanese government knowing this judgment could fundamentally change Australia’s mandatory detention system for the second time in six months. Eliza Edwards, 9 News.