With Novak Djokovic now back under northern skies, we should take a good, hard look at the brouhaha around his case.
Sure, it’s been the impetus for a dozen lessons — how not to scam the system; how the left and the right can be united on a common cause; the might of public opinion; the importance of being honest when filling out forms; even the power of the pro-vaccine message within Australia.
But perhaps the greatest lesson to come out of the 34-year-old’s week from hell is how the Australian court system works, and how it could work immeasurably better and fairer.
Routinely, urgent domestic violence cases take weeks before being heard before the same court: weeks when a woman might be living in fear of her life; weeks when a father is unable to see the children who belong in his house; weeks when children are shunted between angry adults, sometimes being subjected to violence along the way.
Kelli Martin, a family and domestic violence lawyer in Queensland, was planning a LinkedIn post about gratitude when news lobbed last Friday that Novak Djokovic would have his case heard in an out-of-hours session.
Instead, the intended message about gratitude became a frustrated post about equity. As a lawyer dealing in high-risk cases in family courts on a daily basis, she is often consoling parents terrified their children are in danger. And she knows an “urgent” court date in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, as it is now known after its merger last year, means two to four weeks from filing details.
“I accept this is alleged to be ‘in the public interest’ but how the HELL do the Australian government put the rights of an unvaccinated tennis player before the rights of abused women and children across Australia,” she asked.
Her followers — many of them lawyers before the same court — jumped to support her, raising the point that Djokovic was sharing the same hotel with refugees who had been languishing for years, not yet having had their day in court.
“This case just highlights that justice isn’t blind — it’s white, rich and famous,” another lawyer commented. Others told Martin about cases where they had sought urgent hearings and then had to wait… and wait… and wait.
“To have a judge sitting at 8.45pm on a Friday night and then a full bench … sitting on a Sunday in my recollection is very unusual,” Martin told Crikey yesterday.
“Over Christmas I dealt with a parent whose two-year-old child hadn’t been returned on Christmas Day, and we didn’t get a hearing until last Thursday.”
(It took 10 days to get a hearing once she had filed notice — but over Christmas and New Year it was even difficult to lodge that.)
“So 10 days to two weeks is what they deem to be an urgent hearing — and that’s even after the changes to the court have been made, which were meant to speed up the system … but you will never hear of a judge in a family law matter. I’ve never heard of a judge having a matter listed at 8.45pm at night.”
Why? Why is a top tennis player able to activate our court system to hear late-night and all-day Sunday evidence when Australian families, fighting to keep or collect their children, don’t have the same access? Under any measure, is that fair?
And the wait is longer for those who cannot source a lawyer — because they don’t often know what to argue to ensure the case is heard with any sense of urgency.
Like hundreds and hundreds of other family and domestic violence lawyers, Martin has cases in urgent need of hearing. Like the father who hasn’t seen his children since last March. She filed that case in October last year. The case, she says, involves “some significant risk issues”.
The interim hearing is now scheduled for February, almost one year since these children have felt the warmth of their father’s hug.
“Children’s lives are being affected deeply by the delays in the family court system,” Martin says. “And yet a privileged tennis player gets two hearings on a weekend, one in front of three Federal Court judges which took all day on a Sunday!”
It’s wrong. It’s unfair. And it risks the health, welfare and happiness of our children.
Novak Djokovic’s access to judges on the weekend has simply exposed the shabbiness the rest of us face — and the need for our political parties to promise immediate change.
Have you experienced slack or shabby treatment from our legal system? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Ain’t going to change under this government! Can only imagine the pain and frustration of those within the system!
Ain’t gonna change under the next govt either, more’s the pity…
Given that their riding instructions comes from the same $ource$, that’s a certainty.
Passing strange that a millionaire tennis player’s problems with immigration have, on a holiday season weekend, mobilised the full Federal Court, with the Chief Justice and two supporting judges dragged from their beds on a Sunday morning at who knows what personal inconvenience, not to mention cost to us taxpayers, as well as Ministers of the Crown, Senior Counsels, barristers, solicitors, journalists in droves, immigration officials, Border Force officers, and police. All to decide whether this poor fellow could play tennis next week.
And to rescue this unfortunate tennis star from the discomfort of his room in the Park Hotel. Considering these remarkable events, it’s puzzling to remember that some “unlawful” arrivals have waited in misery for years for some bureaucrat to determine that they are in fact refugees.
Of course it’s true that Djokovic was free to return to his own country at any time and forget his prizemoney. The penalty for him might be the loss of perhaps another million dollars. Other detainees are repeatedly told that they too can return home if they wish, the penalty being perhaps imprisonment, torture or murder. Not quite the same thing.
How do we make sense of all this? Or is it impossible?
They are not “…repeatedly told that they too can return home…”.
They are told that they are free to go, with a gratis one way ticket, to anywhere they wish that will have them, with a golden go-away nest egg.
Australia is a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. According to the convention, countries who have signed the Convention cannot punish refugees for entering or living without permission, or unnecessarily restrict their freedom of movement.
I have to wonder whether detaining refugees in hotel rooms (or anywhere else) for years, denying them medical assistance, wilfully exposing them to deadly disease, or these generous inducements to just piss off out of our country are in any way consistent with our deep respect for human rights.
What’s your take on refugees that cross thru a half dozen safe countries before claiming refugee status in Australia. USA or UK? Or in a more curious example get bused to the boarder by the neighboring countries military?
Who wrote this unwritten law that you must stop in the first safe country? They’re doing what I would do, what my forebears did when seeking a new life, and maybe yours did too. Aren’t desperate asylum seekers allowed to use common sense?
If an Afghan Hazara refugee child can even here be detained for nine years, two of them locked in a hotel room, how would he fare in “safe” Iran or Pakistan?
Yes, my ancestors were economic immigrants like most people in this forum. My point is that they cant be DESPERATE refugees and asylum seekers if they are willing to pass thru multiple safe haven countries, countries that speak their language and practice their religion.
If they are economic immigrants thats perfectly fine, but they need to get in the queue like those following the rules.
It’s one or the other.
they cant be DESPERATE refugees and asylum seekers if they are willing to pass thru multiple safe haven countries, countries that speak their language and practice their religion.
So they can be desperate or rational, but not both. Another unwritten law?
You’re conflating issues, as many others do deliberately. If someone is fleeing persecution and in fear of their life and using that to jump the queue then while they may PREFER to go to a wealthy country with a strong welfare system, they have no right to demand it. They should be satisfied, not ecstatic, but satisfied they are able to go to another that will allow them to get on with their lives.
It is written, in the Convention – they should stop and apply for asylum in the first signatory country.
It is then up to the UN to adjudicate their claims.
I don’t believe you, but perhaps you can convince me. And according to the strawman, they must also be “safe” countries which speak their language and practice their religion? I note that we didn’t enforce these unwritten rules when we accepted so many refugees in the 50s and 60s. Language and religion proved unimportant.
What? I called out that many travel thru safe countries that have the same religion and or language and yet they still claim to be fleeing persecution. I didn’t say they HAD to have those attributes.
Doesn’t the Convention exist to regulate the behaviour of signatory nations? Not to regulate the behaviour of refugees?
I’m intrigued by the idea of a bunch of first world nations earnestly drawing up rules for third world refugees to follow, knowing that the refugees won’t be aware of such rules, haven’t agreed to them, are under no obligation to abide by them, and obviously won’t.
And would Australia be a party to a Convention carefully designed to divert refugees away from Australia and into countries less able to help them. That would be shameful. But who knows?
Refugees fly to Indonesia and then try to catch a boat to *mainland* Australia where asylum laws apply unlike the islands we excised… you dont think they know how asylum laws work?
I think you are misunderstanding the arguement here.
If they are genuine asylum refugees, then they ARE fleeing persecution or death. So no, I wouldn’t expect them to be legal experts. But I guarantee they all understand the critical points thru word of mouth amongst their asylum seeking peers.
But those that aren’t genuine refugees are living normal lives just like us. TV, internet, mobile phones, etc.
You seem to be treating them all as one ‘wretched tired poor huddled mass’ and you are getting played.
Interesting – “…no obligation to abide by the(m RULES), and obviously won’t.” – makes them sound like ideal citizens.
You need to define what (you think[sic!] that) you mean by refugee. Anybody who rocks up demanding entry, accommodation, welfare, all mod.cons and a lifestyle they could not expect back home?
Presumably you have locks on your doors & windows?
In a nation this is called a border – a well known concept, from time immemorial – and entry is regulated, just as you no doubt do with your home.
Hold up, I have a simpler question for Rotsock. Who do you think should be able to turn up at our shores and be granted residency status? We both seem to agree on genuine asylum refugees. But who else? Where do YOU draw the line at who should have to wait in our various immigration queues and who can ‘jump’ those queues?
Even the most ideal citizens can break rules which don’t exist. You’re boring me.
Bishop Berkeley you ain’t, if rules don’t exist, they cannot be broken.
Of course you are bored, full of holes like your argument.
Tell us who you think should be allowed access and how they should fo it? Just turn up at the shore? Fill out a form? Wait in an OS camp?
And while you are at it, explain who shouldnt be able to come and how YOU would stop them.
The Convention was created post WWII when there were many millions of displaced persons what you call ‘first world nations’ in shattered Europe.
The regulations were to prevent the more generous nations being overwhelmed and an orderly process was developed to try to ensure this.
How would you feel if someone pushed in front in a queue when you had been waiting?
Unfortunate example – Hazara would speak Fazir, mutually intelligible to Urdu speakers (Pakistan) and are Shia so Iran would be ideal, as it is Shia and Fazir speaking.
Pakistan & Iran have each taken 2-3M Afghan refugees from 40 years of amerikan instigated & perpetuated war.
Pakistan was the 3rd largest recipient of US aid, after Israel & Egypt, and used to fund madrassas whence came the taliban – an Urdu word meaning ‘student’.
Ideal except for immigration rules, citizenship, living standards, employment prospects. Why would language be more important? I suppose you mean Farsi, which is different from Urdu. I think Hazaras would have difficulty living in some parts of Pakistan, just as in Afghanistan.
Yes, Pakistan, Iran, Jordan, Turkey have taken millions of refugees, many now living in desperate circumstances, with little hope of relief, while we boast of having taken more refugees than anyone else on the planet. Perhaps that’s why so many arguments are put up to persuade us that it’s not fair of them to trouble us further.
US aid wasn’t confined to madrassas. Some went to weapons and military training and hence the Taliban.
Despite half a century of US sanctions and destabilisation (Saddam’s US sanctioned & armed decade long war), Iranian living standards are the highest in west Asia (ABARE’s ludicrous reclassification following gov. pressure in late 90s, to confuse the Hanson mob – not difficult) and similar language – pfft, unimportant when there is an issue you need to obfuscate & misdirect.
Either you are being deliberately obtuse in pretending to not understand simple statements or you failed primary skool reading comprehension which, given your posts, is quite likely.
BTW, Farsi is a Raj transliteration of Persian, corrupted from ‘Parsi’ – the Persian community in Mumbai, Bombay as was – which, up until Independence still spoke pure, ancient Persian.
Official languages of Afghanistan are Dari also known Farsi, and Pashto (also spoken in the Frontier Province of Pakistan). The Parsee (Zoroastrian) communities In India and Pakistan may speak Farsi, or did once, but I doubt it. Fazir, I’ve never heard of.
There are reports that Iran is overwhelmed by Afghan refugees, that some are living in pitiable conditions, and that some are being forcibly returned. Not a place where I would choose to seek asylum if I had a choice and was thinking rationally.
Apparently personal abuse is par for the course, but nonetheless disappointing, and unconvincing.
Name all the countries they passed thru and we can discuss their prospects of safety and reasonable living standard in each.
It’s a bit like saying I’m starving, and then knocking back any free food not from a Michelin hatted restaurant. Sure, I can desire such food judt like the next guy, but I cant demand it if I’m claiming to be starving.
….if you choose to only eat at a hatted restaurant then make a reservation and wait your turn.
And no jumping the queue!
Glad to see you got there in the end.
How very very curious that my original question remains unanswered, undiscussed. In fact, very very carefully avoided, evaded, erased from your consciousness. What a bunch of cowardly hypocrites.
Ready to lead the discussion in a dozen different directions, rather than confront the obscenity under your noses. “A bit like saying I’m starving” JFC.
I have to wonder whether detaining refugees in hotel rooms (or anywhere else) for years, denying them medical assistance, wilfully exposing them to deadly disease, or these generous inducements to just piss off out of our country are in any way consistent with our deep respect for human rights.
I’m with you Rostock, as a son of immigrants (although as a Dutch engineer my father had an easy run) I’ve always had the thought that families with the guts and determination to travel all the way to our shores are precisely the kinds of people we should welcome. I look around our country today and I love the diversity, the cultures and the foods. I find it difficult to reconcile this with current ‘we’re full except for white wealthy people’ attitude of our govt.
If I answer your question (what actually is it?) will you answer mine (who would you let in, who wouldn’t you, how would you keep it under control so that you could actually decide and implement the difference, how would you reject those who have arrived but dont pass YOUR assessment).
I feel your being a back seat driver here. Complaining about the faults of our imperfect immigration system, but not offering any other alternative than ‘let it rip’. Easy to say if you aren’t responsible for the political, social and economic consequences like those experienced by Sweden, German and the USA.
Let it rip? Your words, not any alternative I offered. Is “let it rip” the only policy you can imagine other than locking people in hotel rooms for years?
Hey Rotsock, for someone so apparently enraged that their question isn’t being answered, you seem strangely silent on my suggestion we reciprocate.
Offer is still open if you are up for a conversation.
Enraged? No. I look on thy works and despair. Let’s review the best of them –
An imaginary clause in the Refugee Convention, concocted to suit your own requirements.
The imaginary queue so beloved of immigration ministers and right wing pundits (a concept so often debunked that only the desperate still dare mention it).
An imaginary language (Fazir phrase books seem to be out of print, oh dear).
An imaginary refugee, content merely to live, no interest in TV, internet, and such things, preferably starving, with no hopes or dreams of citizenship, career, future prosperity for himself or his children. Imaginary countries (anywhere except here, of course) flooded already with refugees, but always ready to take one more, infinitely tolerant of his race, language and religion whatever they be, as long as he’s content, with his children, to live indefinitely in penury and squalor and perhaps to survive.
And imaginary Australians, filled with generosity and humanity, like us, deeply committed to human rights, and always ready to offer a new life to someone in need (conscious that their own antecedents once were), as long as they meet the strict entry qualifications, but confident that they probably won’t. And strangely blind to the brutality and hypocrisy of their own government.
Odd that you mention “…prosperity for himself or his children…” – why is it that the vast majority of those terrified refugees are fit young males who leave ‘their’ women behind in the danger that they themselves fled.
Are you suggesting that you’ve found a reason to lock up these dastardly males in hotel rooms? Or is this just a convenient moment to change the subject?
I can’t answer your question, but
Here’s a clue
In Iran, the place to go, I’m told, for refugees who shouldn’t be heading further south,
More than 365 prisoners have been executed in 2021 in Iran, raising concern over the abysmal human rights condition which has worsened. This doesn’t include possibly large numbers of prisoners secretly executed
and,
Iran is the world’s chief executioner of women. An average of 15 women is executed in Iran every year.
Perhaps you had no idea that the mullahs could be guilty of such gender bias. I think we can assume that similar gender unbalance would be found in cases of political, religious, racist intolerance, harassments, threats, imprisonments, torture, etc.
As always you flail about and indulge in whaddaboutery, having nothing else in your PC crib sheet.
You seem determined to hold the reactionary role here. How about you tell me what YOU think we should do, not your reaction to what you think I’m saying.
You have the mic. Hold the hyperbole and tell us. We are listening.
I thought I was seeking a reaction to what I was saying back in the distant past. Instead, I’ve been led down a dozen byways, the latest from your fellow sage, immediately above.
So what’s stopping you answering the question?
Well Strawman, I did answer a question. Now I’m accused of “flailing about and indulging in whaddaboutery” – see above. Better than the infantile abuse I once got from the same person, but equally vacuous.
…. and what is your question?
I suppose my question was this (a week ago).
I have to wonder whether detaining refugees in hotel rooms (or anywhere else) for years, denying them medical assistance, wilfully exposing them to deadly disease, or these generous inducements to just piss off out of our country are in any way consistent with our deep respect for human rights.
We all know the answer.
Another question – since we’re partly responsible for this ongoing disaster, how can anybody continue supporting these lame arguments, many imaginary as noted, that other countries, those not responsible and least able to deal with it, should relieve us of the burden?
Those trying to get into Britain from the jungle at Calais have, demonstrably, passed through several Euroland countries, all signatories of the Convention.
Anglosphere countries are known to be a soft touch which is why so many, clearly not short of a quid, flew to Indonesia and hired boats to bring them here.
…And the Indonesian military was shown to be covertly busing them to the boats.
…which is similar to what’s happening in eastern Europe atm.
Sometimes it’s a question of perspective though CS. Indo is already under enormous population pressure and here we are with this massive continent pretending we’re full, unless you’re white and/or wealthy or well educated of course.
As an immigrant of sorts myself, I’m all for immigration. A country of this size and age demographic profile needs it financially and militarily. Ecologically not so much. That’s not what we are debating. The question is how should the govt discriminate between those that are allowed to enter and those that aren’t. How to control the situation so that those who get rejected can be blocked (or removed if they are here already) and how to actually remove them without a media and/or legal circus.
Half a century of transmigrasi has been unable to persuade many of the 147M of those in Java (150K sqkms) to move a ferry ride away to Sumatra which is 473K sqkms.
(For comparison, Victoria is 227K.)
Emigrants, by definition, go elsewhere in anticipation of a better life – almost always because of sclerotic religion & society and the concomitant environmental degradation.
The mystery is why, having arrived somewhere else, so many then want to perpetuate the social mores that ruined their homelands.
An even greater puzzle is why the welcoming societies allow such regressive behaviours.
I think it was more to rescue the government from a problem of their own making.
That does make sense.
Justice is about who you know and your ability to pay and occasionally the truth
To be expected actually. This country worships people with excellent hand-eye coordination or other physical skills (many of whom lack much in the way of an IQ eg footballers from all the codes) yet we ignore others who have given so much back to the community. But then again, Sport is now a business isn’t it.
….. And then there’s the “refugees” (held by the Morrison government under what ostensible excuse) that he was “sharing accommodation” with ….