Lawyers representing a Tamil asylum seeker from the North-East of Sri Lanka who was detained at sea for 4 weeks along side 156 others by the Australian authorities, told a court on Tuesday that such a detention was illegal.

Ron Merkel QC, one of the lawyers acting for the asylum seekers, said the conditions on the boat, where Tamils were unable to move around on the vessel, was a "deprivation of liberty".

Arguing that the Australian government's attempt to deport the 157 asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, or return them to India, from where they had fled, was also illegal, the lawyers told the high court that authorities did not seek to ascertain if the asylum seekers faced persecution.

Only “brief biographical details" were asked, the lawyers said. Ron Merkel QC stated that sending the asylum seekers back to India where they would be denied employment, education and health rights was against international law.

“It cannot be concluded that India is a safe place,” Merkel added.

The verdict of the case is expected to have significant implications on Australia'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," Daniel Webb of the Human Rights Law Centre told ABC.

See here, here, and here for more.

Last month the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Australia would have breached the UN refugee convention if it had deported over 150 asylum seekers detained at sea, to India, whilst making a submission to the High Court.

A report published by an Australian researcher, who went to Sri Lanka under the guise of being a tourist, detailed evidence that Tamil refugees deported from Australia faced torture and sexual violence on return.

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