Papua New Guinea High Court ruling: the asylum seeker detention centre on Manus Island must close | openDemocracy

3.5.16

Papua New Guinea High Court ruling: the asylum seeker detention centre on Manus Island must close | openDemocracy: The PNG High Court’s decision was a unanimous rejection of this secretive arrangement between the “border protection” agendas of the Australian government and unconstitutional foreign capital seeking interests in PNG politics. Manus Island Detention Centre has been ordered to close immediately.

Because Universal Human Rights are enshrined in the PNG constitution (unlike the Australian constitution), it was clear from the very beginning that the Manus Island Detention centre was unconstitutional and would not survive being challenged in the High Court. The deal between successive Australian governments and the PNG government to indefinitely detain boat arrival asylum seekers, and to make it clear that even legitimate asylum seekers within this system of offshore detention would never be accepted by Australia, is a clear abrogation of the human rights of those asylum seekers under the terms of the UNHCR convention to which both Australia and PNG are signatories. However, Australia and PNG approach the relationship between their UNHCR obligations and the laws of the land in very different ways.