High Court dismisses key challenge to indefinite immigration detention. What does it mean?

By Sara Dehm, Senior lecturer, international migration and refugee law, University of Technology Sydney
Anthea Vogl, Associate professor, law, University of Technology Sydney

The High Court unanimously ruled today that the Australian government can keep asylum seekers in immigration detention indefinitely in cases where they do not “voluntarily” cooperate with their own deportation.

This includes, for example, when a person refuses to apply for travel documents due to a longstanding fear for their life if returned to their home country.

At the crux of today’s ruling is the legal fiction that indefinite immigration detention can remain “non-punitive” and legitimate…

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