Judge extends deportation order

 THE Supreme Court has extended its orders which prevent the Government from deporting 27 detainees located at the Manus Regional Processing Centre. 

Justice Terence Higgins, presiding as a single judge, issued the orders when parties appeared for hearing in Waigani yesterday. 

Higgins directed the detainees’ lawyer, Ben Lomai, to file within 14 days further affidavits of 12 of the detainees stopped from deportation.

The matter returns to court at a later date. 

State lawyer Asher Chillion said some of the detainees were still being processed and some were classed as non genuine refugees. 

Lomai, representing Benham Satah and 301 others, argued that his clients’ rights would be lost if they were deported back to there home countries. 

Lomai said the detainees wanted to be settled in Australia but they were brought to PNG against there will. 

The Supreme Court on Aug 25 restrained Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato, and Chief Migration Officer Rabura Mataio from deporting 27 detainees located at the Manus Regional Processing Centre. 

Lomai obtained the restraining orders after some of his clients were purportedly on the list for deportation to their country of origin. 

Benham Satah and 301 others have filed court proceedings in the Supreme Court to invoke section 57 of the Constitution on the enforcement of guaranteed rights and freedoms. 

The detainees are seeking various orders, including the enforcement of their rights by invoking section 58 of the Constitution for reasonable compensation damages and exemplary damages. 

The detainees are kept at the regional processing centre on Manus Island pursuant to a memoranda of agreement between the Governments of PNG and Australia. 

O’Neill, Pato, Mataio, Attorney-General Ano Pala and the State are named as defendants in the proceedings.