Australian court gives ex-immigration detainees in Australia a break!

Photo credit: the Guardian

Ankle bracelets and curfews on former immigration detainees in Australia will be stripped.

The Daily News reports that the country’s highest court has ruled both encumbrances invalid.

A High Court decision ruled that indefinite detention was illegal and resulted in the release of 215 immigration detainees as of October 18, 2024. However, of those, 145 have electronic monitoring bracelets, and 126 are subject to a curfew after the federal government passed an emergency regulation to add restrictions to the cohort.

The court found that the legislation overreached the separation of powers between the courts, which administer criminal punishment, and the commonwealth government. 

Breaking bridging visa conditions, such as electronic monitoring restrictions or curfews, would result in a mandatory minimum one-year prison sentence.

On Wednesday, the High Court’s decision said, “The imposition of each curfew condition and the monitoring condition on a (bridging visa R) is prima facie punitive and cannot be justified.”

The High Court bid was launched by a stateless Eritrean released from immigration detention under the previous court ruling in November 2023 and charged with six offences for failing to comply with curfew monitoring. 

Out of the 215, there are twelve people convicted of murder or attempted murder, sixty-six for sexual offences, ninety-seven for assault, fifteen for serious drug offences, fifteen for domestic violence and five for people smuggling. Five had low-level or no offences.

Since their release, sixty-two people have been re-detained at some point. State and territory police have charged sixty-five people since their release—twenty of whom are on remand. The rest were in the community either on bail or because their cases had been finalized.