A senior Australian judge questioned whether the government was allowed to detain asylum seekers at sea and transfer them to another country, reports Reuters, after 157 asylum seekers fleeing Sri Lanka were held at sea for over 4 weeks before being transferred to Nauru.
Judge Kenneth Hayne gave the government and the legal team representing the 157 asylum seekers one week to prepare their cases during a hearing on Thursday.
“My concern is whether the government had power to take people from the contiguous zone to a place outside Australia,” Hayne was quoted by The Guardian as saying on Thursday.
“It may be that that is not the only legal issue,” he said, adding, “I’m concerned with the question of power."
Welcoming the court's acknowledgement of uncertainty in the lawfulness of the government's actions, the legal firm representing the asylum seekers, Human Rights Law Centre, said the case would help add scrutiny of the government's action.
“We welcome the court’s recognition that this case involves profoundly important and untested questions about the lawfulness of their treatment,” Daniel Webb of HRLC said.
“Throughout our clients’ ordeal the minister has been incredibly secretive. This case will help ensure some much needed legal and democratic scrutiny of his actions," he added.
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