Tuesday, October 14, 2014 8:00:18 PM
157 Tamil asylum seekers detained illegally and denied procedural fairness, lawyers tell High Court
By Elizabeth Byrne
Photo: The asylum seekers were initially taken to the Cocos Islands
before being transferred to Western Australia and then Nauru. (AAP: Brad Waugh)
The Australian Government's decision to detain 157 Tamil asylum seekers at sea for nearly a month was illegal, lawyers say.
The validity of the law to detain the group in June is under the spotlight at the High Court in Canberra.
The court was today told by lawyers representing the asylum seekers that the group was illegally detained and denied procedural fairness when they were not asked about their refugee status.
The group, which includes 50 children, were intercepted at sea and taken aboard the Australian Customs ship the Oceanic Protector.
The group had set out from Pondicherry in India after fleeing Sri Lanka.
A failed attempt to return the group to India saw them transferred to Nauru via the Cocos Islands and the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre in Western Australia.
Government lawyers told the court the authorities that detained the group were upholding migration laws.
The Government also defended the Maritime Powers Act used to detain the group.
Commonwealth Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson told the court the law which allowed the group's detention at sea was deliberately coercive because it needed to apply to law enforcement in many different circumstances beyond the Migration Act.
The case will continue on Wednesday.
---
The Drum: how to manage refugees
Five experts outline how the asylum seeker issue can be approached better.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-14/mares-heres-how-we-can-better-manage-refugees/5811458
---
In one of the earlier directions hearings, High Court Justice Kenneth Hayne noted the Act seeks to apply the law beyond Australian territorial waters and raised issues not considered before.
The Human Rights Law Centre's Daniel Webb said the outcome could have serious implications for the Government's asylum seeker policies.
"In particular, the court will look at the Government's power to detain people at sea and then take them elsewhere and consider whether that's a power that needs to be exercised fairly; whether that's a power that needs to be exercised with due consideration for individual circumstances," he said.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the decision to detain the asylum seekers on the high seas was cruel and absurd.
"What the Government is trying to do is to give themselves a licence to breach international law and to throw away all decency and basic common sense," she said
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-14/tamil-asylum-seekers-detained-illegally-lawyers-tell-high-court/5811090
===
Australian Leader Serves an Unsportsmanlike Warning to Putin
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORNOCT. 14, 2014
President Vladimir V. Putin was the target of tough talk on Monday over the downing of a
flight in Ukraine. Credit Vasily Maximov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
MOSCOW — Could it be his charm or talent? Or the exaggeratedly macho image?
Whatever it is, there is something about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, that seems to get under the skin of other world leaders, prompting them to say things they typically do not about other important figures, at least not aloud or in public.
On Monday in Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott became the latest in a long line when he told reporters that he planned to get in Mr. Putin’s face at a meeting of the Group of 20 economic forum in Brisbane next month over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine, in which 28 Australian citizens were killed.
“I’m going to shirt-front Mr. Putin,” Mr. Abbott told reporters, using a term that in Australian football means charging an opponent to knock him down and in rugby refers to grabbing an opponent’s shirt or collar. “I am going to be saying to Mr. Putin: ‘Australians were murdered. They were murdered by Russian-backed rebels using Russian-supplied equipment. We are very unhappy about this.’”
VIDEO - Australian Premier [OOPS, Prime Minister] Talks Tough
Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia pulled back from a vow to “shirt front” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but promised a “robust conversation” over the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 downing.
Publish Date October 14, 2014. Photo by Rick Rycroft/Associated Press.
Mr. Abbott eased back a bit on Tuesday after criticism in the Australian news media and from a senator from Tasmania, Jaqui Lambie, who said the Australian leader was “just full of testosterone and bad manners.” A Russian Embassy official called Mr. Abbott’s remarks “immature.”
When it comes to dealing with Mr. Putin, of course, a little testosterone would hardly seem to hurt. The Russian leader, who has a black belt in judo, is well known for his machismo, as well as for showing it off. Among the iconic images of him are photographs of him bare-chested, including one riding a horse and another fishing. There are other photos of him engaged in an array of physical endeavors — scuba diving, for example, and flying a motorized hang glider.
Mr. Abbott is hardly the only leader to offer sharp-tongued comments about Mr. Putin. In a call with President Obama this year, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, reportedly said that Mr. Putin appeared to be “in another world.”
President George W. Bush famously said he had looked Mr. Putin in the eye during their first meeting in 2001 and gotten “a sense of his soul .. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010618.html,” calling him “trustworthy,” only to complain later that dealing with Mr. Putin was “like arguing with an eighth grader with his facts wrong.”
As secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton was reported to privately mock Mr. Putin’s legs-spread-wide posture. And in a speech in Las Vegas on Monday night, Mrs. Clinton said, “I see a very coldblooded, calculated former K.G.B. agent who is determined to not only enrich himself and his closest colleagues but also to try to revive Russia’s influence around its border.”
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, Mr. Putin has made only a few appearances at major international events, including a World War II commemoration in Normandy in June, where he got a polite, if hardly warm, reception.
Another test of Mr. Putin’s standing among his international colleagues will come on Thursday, when he is set to attend a meeting of European and Asian leaders in Milan.
As for the encounter next month with Mr. Abbott in Brisbane, although the Russian Embassy in Australia in its response this week noted Mr. Putin’s judo expertise, there are signs that the Russian president may be losing some of his mojo.
After a hike in Siberia on his 62nd birthday this month, Mr. Putin said he was in pain. “I did nearly nine kilometers mountain trekking,” a bit over five miles, he said two days later. “And everything aches ever since.”
With a few more links: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia-australia-tony-abbott.html?_r=0
By Elizabeth Byrne
Photo: The asylum seekers were initially taken to the Cocos Islands
before being transferred to Western Australia and then Nauru. (AAP: Brad Waugh)
The Australian Government's decision to detain 157 Tamil asylum seekers at sea for nearly a month was illegal, lawyers say.
The validity of the law to detain the group in June is under the spotlight at the High Court in Canberra.
The court was today told by lawyers representing the asylum seekers that the group was illegally detained and denied procedural fairness when they were not asked about their refugee status.
The group, which includes 50 children, were intercepted at sea and taken aboard the Australian Customs ship the Oceanic Protector.
The group had set out from Pondicherry in India after fleeing Sri Lanka.
A failed attempt to return the group to India saw them transferred to Nauru via the Cocos Islands and the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre in Western Australia.
Government lawyers told the court the authorities that detained the group were upholding migration laws.
The Government also defended the Maritime Powers Act used to detain the group.
Commonwealth Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson told the court the law which allowed the group's detention at sea was deliberately coercive because it needed to apply to law enforcement in many different circumstances beyond the Migration Act.
The case will continue on Wednesday.
---
The Drum: how to manage refugees
Five experts outline how the asylum seeker issue can be approached better.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-14/mares-heres-how-we-can-better-manage-refugees/5811458
---
In one of the earlier directions hearings, High Court Justice Kenneth Hayne noted the Act seeks to apply the law beyond Australian territorial waters and raised issues not considered before.
The Human Rights Law Centre's Daniel Webb said the outcome could have serious implications for the Government's asylum seeker policies.
"In particular, the court will look at the Government's power to detain people at sea and then take them elsewhere and consider whether that's a power that needs to be exercised fairly; whether that's a power that needs to be exercised with due consideration for individual circumstances," he said.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the decision to detain the asylum seekers on the high seas was cruel and absurd.
"What the Government is trying to do is to give themselves a licence to breach international law and to throw away all decency and basic common sense," she said
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-14/tamil-asylum-seekers-detained-illegally-lawyers-tell-high-court/5811090
===
Australian Leader Serves an Unsportsmanlike Warning to Putin
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORNOCT. 14, 2014
President Vladimir V. Putin was the target of tough talk on Monday over the downing of a
flight in Ukraine. Credit Vasily Maximov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
MOSCOW — Could it be his charm or talent? Or the exaggeratedly macho image?
Whatever it is, there is something about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, that seems to get under the skin of other world leaders, prompting them to say things they typically do not about other important figures, at least not aloud or in public.
On Monday in Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott became the latest in a long line when he told reporters that he planned to get in Mr. Putin’s face at a meeting of the Group of 20 economic forum in Brisbane next month over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine, in which 28 Australian citizens were killed.
“I’m going to shirt-front Mr. Putin,” Mr. Abbott told reporters, using a term that in Australian football means charging an opponent to knock him down and in rugby refers to grabbing an opponent’s shirt or collar. “I am going to be saying to Mr. Putin: ‘Australians were murdered. They were murdered by Russian-backed rebels using Russian-supplied equipment. We are very unhappy about this.’”
VIDEO - Australian Premier [OOPS, Prime Minister] Talks Tough
Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia pulled back from a vow to “shirt front” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but promised a “robust conversation” over the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 downing.
Publish Date October 14, 2014. Photo by Rick Rycroft/Associated Press.
Mr. Abbott eased back a bit on Tuesday after criticism in the Australian news media and from a senator from Tasmania, Jaqui Lambie, who said the Australian leader was “just full of testosterone and bad manners.” A Russian Embassy official called Mr. Abbott’s remarks “immature.”
When it comes to dealing with Mr. Putin, of course, a little testosterone would hardly seem to hurt. The Russian leader, who has a black belt in judo, is well known for his machismo, as well as for showing it off. Among the iconic images of him are photographs of him bare-chested, including one riding a horse and another fishing. There are other photos of him engaged in an array of physical endeavors — scuba diving, for example, and flying a motorized hang glider.
Mr. Abbott is hardly the only leader to offer sharp-tongued comments about Mr. Putin. In a call with President Obama this year, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, reportedly said that Mr. Putin appeared to be “in another world.”
President George W. Bush famously said he had looked Mr. Putin in the eye during their first meeting in 2001 and gotten “a sense of his soul .. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010618.html,” calling him “trustworthy,” only to complain later that dealing with Mr. Putin was “like arguing with an eighth grader with his facts wrong.”
As secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton was reported to privately mock Mr. Putin’s legs-spread-wide posture. And in a speech in Las Vegas on Monday night, Mrs. Clinton said, “I see a very coldblooded, calculated former K.G.B. agent who is determined to not only enrich himself and his closest colleagues but also to try to revive Russia’s influence around its border.”
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, Mr. Putin has made only a few appearances at major international events, including a World War II commemoration in Normandy in June, where he got a polite, if hardly warm, reception.
Another test of Mr. Putin’s standing among his international colleagues will come on Thursday, when he is set to attend a meeting of European and Asian leaders in Milan.
As for the encounter next month with Mr. Abbott in Brisbane, although the Russian Embassy in Australia in its response this week noted Mr. Putin’s judo expertise, there are signs that the Russian president may be losing some of his mojo.
After a hike in Siberia on his 62nd birthday this month, Mr. Putin said he was in pain. “I did nearly nine kilometers mountain trekking,” a bit over five miles, he said two days later. “And everything aches ever since.”
With a few more links: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia-australia-tony-abbott.html?_r=0
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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