Court dismisses asylum seekers’ applications

By DEMAS TIEN  
THE Supreme Court has dismissed two applications filed by the asylum seekers on Manus seeking orders for their release and compensation for illegal detention – because they did not sign the applications.
The three-man bench consisted of Justice David Cannings, Justice Goodwin Poole and Justice Hitelai Polume-Kiele.
Poole and Polume-Kiele ruled that the applications should have been signed by the asylum seekers because they were the applicants  and not by their lawyer Ben Lomai.
Cannings, however, ruled that Lomai, as lawyer for the asylum seekers, had the authority to sign the applications on behalf of the asylum seekers.
The dismissal followed submissions by lawyers representing Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato and Chief Migration Officer Mataio Rabura that the applications were incompetent and an abuse of process because the asylum seekers did not sign the two applications.
Lawyer Ian Molloy submitted that the two applications filed by the asylum seekers were flawed because they did not comply with the law.
Molloy said Lomai had no power to sign the applications on behalf of the applicants.
Lawyer Tauvasa Tanuvasa, representing Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, Attorney-General Ano Pala and the State, supported Molloy’s submissions.
Ron Merkel, representing the asylum seekers with Lomai, said the applications were filed under Section 57 of the Constitution which could be signed by the applicants’ lawyer.
He said Lomai was able to get only 25 applicants to sign because it was difficult to reach the 300-plus asylum seekers. Lomai said he had received instructions to act on behalf of the applicants in both applications and the court was aware of that. Lomai said outside court that he would go to Manus Island to get all the signatures of the asylum seekers.