This is huge news to those who oppose Australia’s strict asylum seeker policy (half of the people detained on Manus Island were found to be refugees) particularly as Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court has ordered that the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments must begin dismantling the process immediately.
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Papua New Guinea’s then opposition leader Belden Namah challenged the Manus arrangement in court, claiming it violated the rights of asylum seekers.
The bench of five judges, handed down the decision ruling detention of asylum seekers breach the right to personal liberty prescribed by PNG’s constitution. Last month the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea said of Manus Island: “we can not hold the refugees there forever”.
Because the asylum seekers and refugees had not voluntarily entered Papua New Guinea, the situation of illegal immigration did not apply to them judgement says.
FILE – In this May 12, 2013 file photo, Iranian asylum seekers who were caught in Indonesian waters while sailing to Australia sit on a boat at Benoa port in Bali, Indonesia. “Those found not to be refugees should return to their country of origin”.
A group of around twenty protesters stand outside and occupy Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s electoral office, as they demand the end to the policy of offshore detention of asylum seekers, in the Sydney suburb of Edgecliff, Australia, October 14, 2015.
“PNG’s Supreme Court has recognised that detaining people who have committed no crime is wrong”, said Ms Elaine Pearson, director of Human Rights Watch in Australia. Australia pays Papua New Guinea and the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru to hold them in detention camps instead.
“At some stage of course we need to close the centre, these people can not remain in Manus forever”.
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“It is time to stop the abuse of vulnerable people who only ask for safety and the opportunity to rebuild their lives”.
