Portal:Australia/Featured article/Week 37, 2006

Al-Kateb v Godwin was an important Australian court case decided in the High Court of Australia on 6 August 2004. It concerned a stateless man who was detained under the policy of mandatory immigration detention. His application for a protection visa had been denied, and because he was stateless no other country would accept him. The issue in the case was whether indefinite immigration detention was lawful, and the court ultimately decided that it was. The court considered two main questions, firstly, whether the Migration Act 1958 (the legislation which governs immigration in Australia) permitted a person in Al-Kateb's situation to be detained indefinitely, and secondly, if it did, whether that was permissible under the Constitution of Australia. A majority of the court decided that the Act did allow indefinite detention, and that the Act was not unconstitutional.