The Australian Government passed new legislation on Wednesday that authorizes the government to indefinitely detain migrants who are seen as threats to public safety and cannot be deported or extradited. This law was enacted in response to recent court rulings in Australia that rendered unlawful to keep migrants in custody indefinitely when they couldn’t be extradited to their home nations.
Previously, this landmark ruling had led to the release of numerous individuals who had exceeded their prison sentences, triggering concerns for public safety that the government sought to address. This resulted in the introduction of new laws placing strict curfews on all released migrants and imposing obligatory ankle monitor bracelets to track potentially threatening individuals.
However, the enforcement of these measures was met with criticism, with opponents arguing that these measures violated the migrants’ rights to freedom of movement and treated them as if they were criminals without subjecting them to legal penalties. The newly-passed regulations allow the government to indefinitely detain any migrant perceived to be a significant threat to Australian public safety. This would mark the end of continuous monitoring of former offenders at the discretion of the authorities on a case-by-case basis.
The new law states that the government could only detain a person if they are convinced that there is a severe risk to public safety if the said person is left free. This legislative move coincides with an issue faced by many countries as dangerous individuals arrested and sentenced in the early part of the ‘War on Terror’ complete their sentences.
This article is based on the information obtained from JURIST.