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Comment by YPPH | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty impressive that the courts in Australia can, in appropriate circumstances, hear and determine a judicial review application, before three judges, over a weekend.

It gives me great confidence in the rule of law, in that federal Executive power can be kept in check without undue delay.

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This comment deserves to be calligraphied in gold leaf and displayed in a museum as the ne plus ultra of sarcasm.

If only other detainees have the same option and visibility!

Unfortunately legal representation is bought by six figure fees. Lawyers are simply mercenaries for hire by whomever will pay sufficiently well to get them out of bed on a Sunday morning to argue a case.

Unfortunately public defenders and pro-bono human rights advocates are not as motivated.

> Unfortunately public defenders and pro-bono human rights advocates are not as motivated.

I think this kind of sweeping generalization is unfair. I've seen many who were very motivated. The fact that legal proceedings take long does not have much to do with the availability of the lawyers. If a case proceeds quickly, it's almost always because of political pressure.

I've seen on TV an immigrant from Iran who's been jailed in the same hotel as Djokovic for several years. Letting him go is probably lenient for Australian standards.

i'm guessing the long-term detainees there are seeking (political?) asylum, and while australia is reluctant to grant them one, they also recognize that deporting them could cause harm to those individuals which would ultimately reflect poorly on australia's human rights track record.

so they end up in this limbo as a compromise.

If I'm not mistaken, the individual who has spend many years (was it 9 years?) in detention is classified as a genuine refugee, however, he came to Australia by boat and the Australian policy is that boat refugees will never settle in Australia. As I understand it, he has applied for a refugee visa to the US and while his application is being processed, he's in limbo.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/07/everyone-asks-...

thank you for providing the details of this specific case.

that's such a bizarre policy. descendants of people who arrived by boat and settled in australia hundreds of years ago deciding that such behavior is unacceptable.

do you happen to know what the rationale for this policy is?

Like our FISA? Mind you this Aus court didn't address to what extend the limits can apply. Read their laws. Basically, their FM can cancel for ANY reasons valid or not is not questionable. Court only uphold what is the law never address the limits of it. They have less people than ours, theirs can operate fairly quickly plus this is high profile case.

Even better that the rules, in this case, apply equally to everyone

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