After more than 1000 days in immigration detention, a Tamil family who lived in central Queensland has won another legal battle in its fight against attempts by the government to deport the father, mother and two young daughters to Sri Lanka.
The full bench of the Federal Court ruled this morning that Tharunicaa Murugappan, the younger Australian-born daughter of Priya and Nades, had been denied procedural fairness by the government when assessing her visa application in 2019.
The judgment upheld Justice Mark Moshinsky’s decision in April last year in which he held that Immigration Minister David Coleman had denied Tharunicaa procedural fairness by failing to consider a brief prepared by the Home Affairs Department directing him to “lift the bar” and consider her visa application.
Despite being born in Australia, Tharunicaa has the same visa status as her parents — who arrived by boat and are therefore barred from obtaining a visa. However, the immigration minister has the power to “lift the bar” and approve her visa.
Lawyers for the Murugappan family say they are assessing whether an injunction or stay of orders will be required to stop further deportation attempts by the government.
“We will be reviewing the decision and considering appealing to the High Court, and unless the minister provides an undertaking not to remove, we will apply for an injunction,” lawyer Carina Ford said.
“We also think this justifies the release of the family from detention.”
Today’s reprieve means the Murugappans are likely to remain in Australia, despite increasingly desperate attempts to deport them. In 2019 they won a last-minute injunction while on the plane, allowing them to remain in Australia while court cases over Tharunicaa’s visa application continued. Since then they’ve been housed on Christmas Island, costing taxpayers $3.9 million.
Today’s judgment is just the latest episode in a saga that has highlighted the Kafkaesque legalism and theatrical cruelty of Australia’s immigration detention system.
Priya and Nades both separately fled Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war and met in 2014 while on bridging visas in Australia. They had two girls, Kopika and Tharunicaa, while living in the central Queensland town of Biloela. After their visas expired, they were taken from their home in a dawn raid in 2018 and placed in immigration detention in Melbourne.
They have been in detention ever since, while their lawyers have fought a string of legal battles to keep them in Australia.
It is a case that has rallied the town of Biloela behind the family, and even won them unexpected supporters, including shock jock Alan Jones, who described their potential deportation as “a shameful chapter”.
The Murugappans could be living freely in the community if not for adamant opposition from the Morrison government. In 2019, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton referred to the children as “anchor babies” who were costing Australians millions of dollars.
“There are several ministers who have always had the discretion within the immigration portfolio to release this family into the community while their legal matters are resolved,” Ford said.
“That was the case in 2018, 2019 and 2020. It remains the case now too.”
Australia’s youngest political prisoners.
The last two children to be imprisoned in immigration detention.
For what purpose?
I read an article earlier on The Guardian Australia which contained this line: The legal costs and the cost to detain the family amount to more than $6m.
Those two little girls were born in Australia and the government has paid $6,000,000 to incarcerate them for 1177 days.
It truly is shameful.
And our Coalition Government has the cheek to criticise other Countries for their Human Rights abuses.
Why does the Liberal Party act as magnet for toxic b@st@rds?
Because many of them are mendacious happy clapper Christians.
Yup. Selective Christianity: ‘suffer the little children….’ that’s all they’ve got..
Apart from the massive cost to keep this family on Christmas Island, what actual benefit to the country is gained by not sending them back to Biloela? If it is a security issue, the agency concerned should provide their reasons to the public or at least to a Senate committee public hearing.
That would be the most sensible, cost effective, and Humane response to let them go back to Biloela, but unfortunately the Coalition do not see it that way, and to prove their point will continue with the unjust treatment of this family.
Unfortunately the treatment of refugees by the LNP has proven a vote winner.
Has Albanese had anything to say about this disgraceful business?
Wasn’t the media years ago saying we would be flooded/overwhelmed with refugees unless they were diverted anywhere but to australia? Labor could not go against the mass community fear of the dreaded refugees arriving. Think they were complicit with others in allowing draconian measures.