Australia to release asylum seekers in indefinite detention after landmark ruling

By Praveen Menon

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia has released a stateless Rohingya man held in immigration detention for years, the government said on Friday, following a landmark court ruling that paves the way to end the indefinite detention of asylum seekers.

The High Court ruled on Wednesday that the man from Myanmar identified as NZYQ, who has been in detention after serving time in jail for child sexual offences, has been unlawfully detained as there was no real prospect that he could be removed from Australia in the foreseeable future.

The verdict overturns an Australian court ruling from about 20 years ago that said indefinite immigration detention was lawful as long as the government had the intention of removing the person from Australia eventually.

Australian Immigration minister Andrew Giles said in a statement on Friday that NZYQ has been released.

He also said other stateless detainees would also be released.

"Other impacted individuals will be released and any visas granted to those individuals will be subject to appropriate conditions," Giles said.

There are about 92 asylum seekers currently being held in Australia who are stateless or cannot be returned to their home country due to fear of prosecution. Many of them are being held because of concerns over their character or potential risks to national security.

According to court documents, NZYQ arrived in Australia by boat in 2012. He was arrested and convicted of child sexual offenses in 2015. After spending more than 3 years in jail, he was sent to immigration detention in 2018.

The government is awaiting the full decision of the High Court. The ruling on Wednesday surprised interested groups as onlookers as the High Court took just 16 minutes to announce its verdict.

Laws allowing indefinite detention of asylum seekers have shaped Australia's border politics for the last two decades, as the government routinely held people for prolonged periods of time – some for over a decade.

The court ruling this week ends indefinite detention, said Sanmati Verma, Acting Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre.

"This has life-changing consequences for people who have been detained for years without knowing when, or even if, they will ever be released, Verma said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the decision has the potential to begin to align Australia’s immigration detention practices with international law.

"UNHCR has expressed grave concerns over the last decades about arbitrary and indefinite detention in Australia," Adrian Edwards, UNHCR Regional Representative for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific said in a statement.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)