The federal government's political campaign against Dr Mohamed Haneef took a further blow on August 19, when Federal Court judge Jeffrey Spender ruled that immigration minister Kevin Andrews had unlawfully cancelled Haneef's work visa on character grounds.
Justice Spender said the minister had interpreted the word "association" in the Migration Act so widely that "completely innocent" people could be stripped of visas simply because they had a relative, friend or even lawyer whom police suspected of criminal conduct. Spender even stated that — since he has been "associated" with criminals (in his legal work) — then he too could fail a character test under such a broad definition.
Andrews cancelled Haneef's visa on July 16 in order to prevent Haneef's release on bail, which had been granted just hours before. The granting of bail for "recklessly supporting terrorism" — which comes under the "anti-terror" legislation where there is a presumption against bail — indicated the weakness of the case against Haneef. Australian Bar Association president Stephen Estcourt condemned the government's overrule of the courts as a "threat to the rule of law".
Pressure mounted on the government and the Australian Federal Police as the weakness of the case against Haneef was revealed, indicating a frame-up of an innocent man. The charges against Haneef were dropped on July 27, almost four weeks after he was taken into custody.
Haneef has been subjected to almost two weeks' detention without charge; the spurious charge of "reckless support for terrorism" for innocently giving the talk time on his SIM card to a relative; the government overruling the courts to squash his bail; and an unceasing political campaign to smear his name, led by the federal government seeking another Tampa-style scapegoat in the run-up to the next election.
While many, including the Greens and the Socialist Alliance, have called for Andrews' resignation over the Haneef affair, Andrews has refused to apologise, and has announced that the government will appeal the decision to restore Haneef's visa, possibly up to the High Court. Andrews continued the slurs against Haneef, saying he was even more suspicious of Haneef now than when he revoked the visa. Andrews stated that even if Haneef does eventually get his visa restored, the government could simply revoke it again.
In response to the smear campaign, on August 20 Haneef's legal team released the transcript of the second police interview with their client. The full transcript reveals Andrews' earlier release of selective, misleading and mistranslated phrases from the interview to raise suspicions about Haneef's intentions.
The full transcript shows that, well before his arrest, Haneef had tried to contact British police several times, and had made all his travel arrangements and had obtained leave from his Gold Coast Hospital job. Haneef's brother, who Andrews implied urged Haneef to leave Australia immediately, actually told Haneef (who had already arranged his trip) to leave his contact details with British police before leaving Australia.
The transcript also raises concerns about police translation, with Haneef disputing some of the English translation. In one case, the Indian language Urdu is written as "Burdu".
Prime Minister John Howard has fully support Andrews' actions. The ALP, which supported the government's actions throughout most of the Haneef case, is now calling for a "judicial inquiry" into the case, in order to "preserve public confidence" in the terror laws.