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On the 8th of November, a historic and ground-breaking decision from Australia’s High Court ruled that indefinite detention is illegal. Although the indefinite detention of asylum seekers and refugees is illegal under international law, Australia has been using its own domestic law to justify detaining refugees arbitrarily since 2004.
Australia has long been criticized for its strict immigration policies by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, particularly regarding asylum seekers and refugees arriving by boat. They provisionally accept 13,500 people each year through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees programme, but the government’s approach under their domestic law has included mandatory detention for those who arrive without proper documentation outside of the scheme. This has led to prolonged periods of confinement for many individuals, and detainees have often found themselves in legal limbo, facing uncertain futures as their cases languished in the immigration system.
The legal challenge that led to this momentous ruling centred around the case of a group of asylum seekers who had been held in immigration detention for an extended period. The plaintiffs argued that indefinite detention without a reasonable prospect of release violated their fundamental human rights, including the right to liberty. These individuals, like many others, were held in prison-like processing centres offshore. Detainees are held for an average of 708 days, with the longest detainment of a prisoner in Australia being 5,766 days long (almost 16 years). These cases prompted a closer examination of Australia’s immigration policies and sparked a broader debate about the balance between national security concerns and the protection of individual rights.
The verdict has far-reaching implications for the country’s immigration policies and the treatment of individuals held in immigration detention centres. This landmark ruling reaffirms the importance of human rights and the rule of law, challenging the notion that the state can hold individuals indefinitely without proper legal recourse.
Image: Miko Guziuk, 2018//CC0 1.0 DEED
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