Asylum ruling today

By ADRIAN MATHIAS
JUSTICE David Cannings is expected to rule today whe­ther the government should continue bringing new asylum seekers to Manus Island following a court restraining order sought by the opposition leader Belden Namah.
 Namah, who is the plaintiff in the Port Moresby National Court proceeding before Cannings, sought interim injunction orders to stop the government from bringing in asylum seekers and to allow them access to legal representation in the proceeding.
Namah is seeking the court’s decision to declare the asylum centre on Manus unconstitutional and the memorandum of understanding signed between the Australian and PNG governments last Sept 8 to be void and of no effect. He claims the asylum centre is illegal under the Constitution.
Namah’s lawyer Loani Henao presented the application and backed it up with several affidavits, including a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the conditions of the centre, saying the centre was confined with no room to allow privacy.
He further submitted that of the 221 asylum seekers comprising Sri Lankans, Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis, Pakistanis and Kuwait nationals, 34 were between the ages seven and 17 and all were detained against their will at Lombrum Naval Base.
Henao asked the court to consider Namah’s application and grant him orders to restrain the government from bringing new asylum seekers into the country and to allow the persons detained to find a lawyer of their choice, adding that they (asylum seekers) were in the country at the will of the PNG government, and not at their own accord.
“If they were in the country on their own accord then they should be subject to detention.
“In this case, these people are in the country at the will of PNG government and therefore they should not be detained and denied of their rights to equal legal representation in court,” Henao said.
Defence lawyer Peter Kuman, who represented Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato, the national executive council (NEC) and the state said there was no evidence that asylum seekers were detained at the centre on Manus.
He added that Namah should visit the centre and see for himself the conditions at the centre before making such applications.
He said the reports from other sources, including that of UNCHR, should not be used or relied on by Namah as the basis of his application, adding that the centre was a result of bilateral relationship between the two (PNG and Australia) sovereign states.
The UNHCR had earlier visited the centre and wrote a report, which said: “the condition on the asylum centre was confined to space and no rooms to accommodate privacy with poor social services, including the physical environment, but Kuman rebutted, saying the report did not say it was a detention centre.
The defence submitted that the court should not grant Namah interim injunctive orders.