Sarah Stephen
On April 26, a team of Australian lawyers, including prominent Melbourne QC Julian Burnside and solicitor Eric Vadarlis, planned to challenge in a Nauruan court the legality of visas issued to 252 asylum seekers to keep them in detention on Nauru.
The lawyers were granted visas on April 23, but as they prepared to board a plane on April 25 they were notified that the visas had been revoked by the Nauruan government. The same flight was boarded by the Australian lawyers representing the Nauru police and government (at the Australian government's expense). When the case opened on April 28, however, justice minister Russell Kun also ordered the Australian government lawyers home, in the interests of making it a fair trial.
Burnside told the April 26 Melbourne Age that it was "political interference and ... a contempt of court" to prevent them from appearing. According to the April 27 Age, Burnside believed they were prevented from getting to Nauru because "Nauru and Australia know that the detention of asylum seekers in Nauru is illegal and they simply don't want that fact to be exposed".
The case is based on the fact that, as the asylum seekers have committed no crime on Nauru, detaining them on the island is illegal under its constitution. Burnside told AAP on April 28: "The visas contain a condition requiring those people to remain locked up so long as they are on Nauru. They didn't want to be in Nauru, they didn't ask for visas and it is a very strange thing to have a visa foisted on you that requires you to go to jail."
Vadarlis told ABC News on April 26: "The good thing is, whatever decision is made, if it's against the refugees, that can be appealed to the High Court of Australia, in Australia."
From Green Left Weekly, May 5, 2004.
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