Consequences
On 26 September 2001, the Parliament of Australia passed the Border Protection (Validation and Enforcement Powers) Act 2001, a retrospective law which gave statutory authorisation to the actions of the Government in detaining the asylum seekers on the Tampa. This would seem to rule out any prospect of an appeal to the High Court of Australia on the matter, since the decision of North at first instance and Black in dissent at appeal were based on the fact that the Government was not exercising a statutory power.
Vadarlis did make an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court on 27 November, but the application was rejected, since by that time all of the asylum seekers had been transferred to Nauru or New Zealand, and their original detention on the Tampa could no longer be challenged. However, in refusing special leave, the court did say that the question of the validity of the new Act, and the question of the nature of the prerogative power of the Government were important questions, which should be considered in an appropriate case.
In 2004, the scheme of immigration detention in Nauru was challenged in the Supreme Court of Nauru by three detainees, in the case of Amiri v Director of Police. The detainees also sought the issue of writs of habeas corpus, but the Supreme Court found that the detention scheme under Nauru's Immigration Act 1999 was valid. The issue was appealed to the High Court of Australia (which has jurisdiction to hear appeals from Nauru under the Nauru (High Court Appeals Act) 1976 ), in the case of Ruhani v Director of Police (No 2), where all judges except Justice Kirby upheld the Supreme Court's decision.
Read more about this topic: Ruddock V Vadarlis
Famous quotes containing the word consequences:
“Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would ... be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer’s apprentice who lacked the magic formula to break the spell.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“We are still barely conscious of how harmful it is to treat children in a degrading manner. Treating them with respect and recognizing the consequences of their being humiliated are by no means intellectual matters; otherwise, their importance would long since have been generally recognized.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)
“The consequences of our actions grab us by the scruff of our necks, quite indifferent to our claim that we have “gotten better” in the meantime.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)