Article en anglais
| publié le 29 avril 2004 |
http://www.emedia.com.my/Current_Ne...
SYDNEY : Court overrules release of child asylum seekers
Australia’s High Court backed the government’s tough policy on illegal immigrants today by overruling a lower court decision that the mandatory detention of child asylum seekers was illegal.
In a landmark ruling, the High Court unanimously allowed an appeal by the immigration ministry against the release last year of five siblings from a South Australian detention centre on orders of the country’s Family Court. The Family Court ruled in June that the government’s policy of indefinitely detaining child asylum seekers violated UN conventions and it ordered the release of the five siblings, who were freed in August. The government immediately appealed the ruling, which could have led to the release of more than 100 children from detention centres. The High Court today ruled that the Family Court did not have the jurisdiction either to free the five children or issue orders concerning the general welfare of children held in immigration detention. The judges agreed with the immigration ministry that Australia’s Migrant Act, which provides for the mandatory detention of illegal noncitizens, included children. "So far as Australian law was concerned, the respondent children were therefore lawfully detained," their judgment said. Lawyers for the family of the five children at the centre of the court case said they would seek a federal court injunction against their return to detention. The five, two boys and three girls aged seven to 12, have been living in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Their identities cannot be revealed. The conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard has detained hundreds of asylum seekers of all ages in remote camps in Australia and the Pacific as part of a tough three-year-old policy designed to discourage illegal immigration. Under the policy all asylum seekers face mandatory detention pending sometimes lengthy legal reviews of their status and eventual deportation. The practice has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations and human rights groups, notably over its inclusion of children. - AFP
