Efforts to deport a man from Australia to Nauru will be challenged in the High Court, a legal not-for-profit has confirmed.
The man is one of three currently in immigration detention awaiting transfer to the small Pacific nation, which Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke revealed on Sunday had been paid to take them.
Mr Burke said at the time he expected a challenge to the legality of the payment, the first of its kind under new laws passed last year.
The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) said on Friday afternoon it had filed legal proceedings for the man, who was “seeking urgent interim orders to restrain the government from removing him to Nauru while the case continues.”
“No one should be permanently exiled to a country that is not their home. Ripping people from their lives and stranding them offshore is a cruel, lifelong punishment,” HRLC’s associate legal director Laura John said.
The trio belongs to the NZYQ cohort, a group of non-citizens who were detained indefinitely because they were considered a risk to community safety but could not be deported. Many have criminal histories, and one of the trio has a prior murder conviction.
The cohort was released into the community after a 2023 High Court ruling deemed detention unlawful in those circumstances.
The government passed new laws to monitor the cohort with ankle monitors and curfews, which it had to revise after another successful High Court challenge.
It also passed laws to hand immigration officials extra powers to facilitate deportations, including by paying other countries.
Those laws also created a provision that meant if a foreign nation offered an ex-detainee a visa, their Australian bridging visa would be automatically cancelled and they would be placed in immigration detention.
Nauru approached Australia and was paid undisclosed sum
Nauru approached the federal government with an offer to take some of the NZYQ cohort in exchange for an undisclosed payment, and the three men now in detention are the first offered long-term Nauruan visas.
The government hopes there will be more to come, and that the Nauruan deal will allow it to pass off the cohort of more than 200 ex-detainees, many with violent criminal histories.
It will argue that with the real prospect of their removal to Nauru, that group will again be able to be placed into detention until their deportation.
Mr Burke said on Sunday he was confident of the legality of his actions.
“The parliament took into account every available precedent when we passed these laws … A little fun fact, there are more legal cases against the immigration minister than any other minister in the Australian government.
“Always has been, always will be,” he said. “We will go in there in a very strong position.”
Ms John said the deportations: “Could set a dangerous precedent for the kind of treatment refugees and migrants are subjected to, both in Australia and around the world.
“It is deplorable for the Albanese government to attempt to banish people from Australia before they have completed their visa review processes.
“Migrants and refugees previously forcibly sent to Nauru by the Australian government have suffered violent attacks, medical neglect and widespread discrimination.
“Every person deserves to live in safety and dignity. Our rights are the same, no matter our visa status.”
