Nauru Bars Asylum Seekers' Lawyers
The Age
Tuesday April 27, 2004
Melbourne lawyers prevented from going to Nauru to represent detained asylum seekers said three other Australian lawyers, acting for Nauru, had been allowed in.
Solicitor Eric Vadarlis, who has challenged in Nauru's Supreme Court the legality of detention, said it was outrageous that his legal team was stopped from boarding a plane to Nauru on Sunday night.
He was one of four Melbourne lawyers granted visas last Friday to attend yesterday's case in the Nauruan Supreme Court over the legality of Nauru police detaining asylum seekers.
Julian Burnside, QC, who tried to board the flight, said an airline official told him Nauru's Minister for Justice, Russell Kun, and Nauru President Rene Harris had ordered that the lawyers were not to board the aircraft.
``At the same time as we were being turned away, a solicitor employed by the Australian Government Solicitor's office boarded the plane for Nauru and he was going out there for this case," Mr Burnside said.
Melbourne QC Peter Hanks, and Brisbane barrister Stephen Lee, who are defending the Nauru police in the challenge, caught the aircraft in Brisbane, he said. ``It is interesting Mr Hanks was only retained to go to Nauru after we had been in court on Friday (morning) and, by 4pm, he had visa, application for admission to practice in Nauru, and was about to arrange a ticket. This same process had taken us about six weeks," he said.
The refugee legal team was issued with visas after their difficulties in getting them from the Nauru Government were raised in the Supreme Court in a separate case on the legality of Australia's detention of asylum seekers on Nauru.
Mr Burnside believes the Melbourne lawyers had been stopped from getting to Nauru because ``Nauru and Australia know that the detention of asylum seekers in Nauru is illegal and they simply don't want that fact to be exposed".
A spokeswoman for the Nauru Government said Mr Kun blocked the team's visas on the basis that there was ``sufficient representation for the asylum seekers on the island".
Spokesmen for the Foreign Affairs and Immigration Departments said Nauru was a sovereign country and made its own visa decisions.
Nauru's spokeswoman in Melbourne, Helen Bogdan, said Nauru's director of police was being ``represented by Australian lawyers on behalf of the Australian Government".
Australian lawyers have previously been allowed into Nauru to act for non-government clients but not in the case of asylum seekers, she said.
An Immigration Department spokesman said that under a memorandum of understanding between the two governments Australia was footing the bill for the court case. He said government solicitor Tony Fell was acting for the Nauru Government.
Mr Burnside said his clients had been seriously disadvantaged. ``It would have been better for them if we could have been there to argue the case," he said.
Mr Burnside said Nauru had no trained lawyers, only 11 ``pleaders", who could appear in court but had no formal qualifications.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone, Sam Spurrett, said the Australian Government had nothing to do with the case. ``Australia has not, and will not, seek to interfere in the affairs of a sovereign nation," he said.
``The Australian Government is not a party to the case, we have nothing to do with the matter and the question of legal representation for the asylum seekers is simply a matter for the Nauruan Government."
© 2004 The Age