Wed 15 Nov 2006
High Court Rules onus to prove still at risk the responsbility of asylum seekers on TPV’s
Posted by admin under Refugee issues
1 Comment
The High Court yesterday overturned a decision of the Federal Court which means that for asylum seekers on Temporary Protection Visa’s who are applying to be accepted as permanent refugees, the responsibility is theirs and not the government to prove that they are still at risk in their own country and are still a refugee. The Howard government appealed the Federal Court decision which said the government carries the onus to prove someone is no longer a refugee, and ofcourse they fought this and took it to a High Court that they have stacked with conservative judges. The hypocriscy of our government when they are the ones that at every opportunity have sought to thwart asylum seekers fundamental human rights to permanent protection. All people seeking asylum who were granted TPV’s would have been permanent refugees in the first instant in any other country.
This is a government that deliberately froze for over a year the processing of Afghan and Iraqi TPV’s holder permanent protection applications in the hope they could reject them in time and also politicised the protection process by rejecting most Iraqi’s and Afgans initially at the DIMA stage. The most salient example being that more than 50% of our Iraqi clients were rejected by DIMA and yet 99.5% were then accepted by the RRT!
Please note this decision does not affect anyone who has a permanent protection visa and it does not mean people on TPV’s will not be able to get a permanent visa, but it will be more difficult to get.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20761616-29277,00.html
It just shows how we need to keep fighting the good fight to keep this government accountable for its actions and protecting the human rights of people seeking asylum.
