The high court will today rule on whether the Australian government should pay damages to
a man it held in indefinite immigration detention for 18 months despite there being “no real prospect of [his] removal”.
Safwat Abdel-Hady’s case could determine whether the 350-or-so non-citizens affected by the high court’s ruling against indefinite detention in November 2023, known as the NZYQ cohort, are liable for damages for false imprisonment.
The Austrian citizen was placed in immigration detention in 2017 after his visa was cancelled by then home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, for pleading guilty to poisoning to endanger life or inflicting grievous bodily harm in 2012.
The
federal circuit court ruled in June 2024 Abdel-Hady was declared not medically fit to travel for an 18-month period between July 2022 and February 2024 due to his medical conditions, and therefore there were no real prospects of removing him from Australia.
Abdel-Hady’s lawyers argued last November he should not have been detained by authorities using the precedent established in the 2004 case of Al-Kateb.
Lawyers acting for the government did not dispute that Abdel-Hady was wrongfully detained but argued the high court’s 2004 ruling had allowed authorities to detain someone indefinitely under the Migration Act before it was later ruled
unlawful in 2023 in the NZYQ case.
We’ll bring you the judgment once it’s delivered after 10am.
Read more here:
<small>Source: The Guardian</small>
