NZYQ, Liberty and the Future of Indefinite Detention

The Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies and the MLS Human Rights Program at Melbourne Law School hosted a seminar chaired by Professor John Tobin, and presented by Professor Adrienne Stone, Professor Michelle Foster and Sanmati Verma, the Acting Legal Director of the Human Rights Law Centre.

In November 2023 the High Court of Australia ordered the immediate release of the stateless refugee, known as ‘NZYQ’, from immigration detention. The decision in NZYQ is highly significant, overturning almost twenty years of legal precedent established in 2004 in the case of Al-Kateb v Goodwin. The High Court unanimously found that because there was ‘no real prospect’ of his removal from Australia ‘becoming practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future’, his detention was no longer valid pursuant to Ch III of the Australian Constitution. The Commonwealth government’s response was swift, with the rapid passage of the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visa Conditions and Other Measures) Act 2023 and further legislative amendments on the agenda.