Australian government is facing cases for its controversial ‘refugee policies’ recently. Image Courtesy – http://www.sbs.com.au
Australian government is facing cases for its controversial ‘refugee policies’ recently. There was hearing on a case on last Tuesday at the High Court at Canberra about detaining 157 Tamil refuge seekers of Sri Lanka. Lawyers against the government policies put a question on validity of the law for detaining the refuge seekers for weeks after they sailed from India in the month of June. The Federal Court has started to consider a case which was already accepted by lawyers might set a point of reference for babies of refuge seekers born in the soil of Australia.
Lawyers in favour of 157 Tamil refuge seekers were in the opinion that their clients were dishonestly detained on the boat. They also gave allegation that the Tamils were currently held in a confinement camp on the Pacific island of Nauru. A question has been raised whether Canberra has the power to expel refugees from its neighbouring zone, simply outside ‘territorial waters’ and send them to other nations.
A Human Rights Law Centre, basically from Melbourne stated that the result could have indications for the policies implemented by the government of Australia. Executive Director of the centre, Hugh De Kretser, told that the case would consider whether the confinement of the refugees was legitimate and the degree of power of the Australian government to block and detain them at sea. This case was consisting of ‘fundamental issues’ of freedom, security and all the procedures accordingly.
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The group of Tamils left the Indian port Pondicherry in the month of June. A number of 50 children were there in the group while Australian authorities captured their boat. Australian authority needed to send them back to India and they were held at limbo on a customs ship while their case was being discussed. The Tamil refugees were eventually brought to Australia for a short period with a plan that Indian consular authorities could evaluate them. But unfortunately, all denied to co-operate with them and shifted them to Nauru.
The Australian government claimed that detention of the refugees at sea was legal and the idea to send them to India did not violate ‘Australia’s non-refoulment’ commitments under international law.
A ridiculous decision was being observed in a case at Brisbane where the fate of a baby was to be determined whether he reached in the nation according to the law, even the baby was conceived in the soil of Australia by his refuge seeking parents. The baby has conceived prematurely a year ago in eastern Australian city after his mother, Rohingya minority, was being transferred from a confinement centre of Nauru because of worries about her pregnancy.
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The administration rebuffed the child’s refugee application on the ground that he was an unlicensed sea entry. Legal experts challenged the issue that how somebody conceived in an Australian hospital could have touched base via ocean. Lawyer Murry Watt addressed the decision as ridiculous because the baby was born in ‘Mater Hospital’ of Brisbane with a Queensland birth certificate. Lawyers also added that cases of about 100 babies were pending who have born on Australian soil and were belong to refugee parents.
Refuge seekers who touched the land arriving by boats were denied resettlement in Australia due to Canberra’s ‘hardline migration strategy’. They were sent to Papua New Guinea, Nauru, regardless of the fact that they were authentic refugees. Only one loaded boat of refuge seekers has achieved the Australian terrain as per the statistics of last December. Other people were landing previously according to the Labour organization on a daily basis; many of them also succumbed to death on their way.
