The NZ Herald carried a story a few days ago about the last Iraqi refugee detailed by Australia on Nauru. A small extract -
Sagar is stuck in legal limbo – although judged to be a genuine refugee by Australian immigration authorities, the country’s intelligence agencies have ruled that he is “a risk to national security”.The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has given no reason for its negative assessment and declined to answer questions on the case.
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The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has tried for two years to find a third country willing to accept Sagar, so far without success.
Keeping refugees on Nauru achieves the same thing as the US detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay – it sheilds people from the standards of the domestic justice system, denying them a right to a trial.
I presume that what this implies is that the Australian government does not believe that standards of justice that apply to people within Australia reflect fundamental or universal human rights. If this is the case, one has to wonder what they consider to be the philosophical basis for the judicial rights enjoyed by Australians within Australia and, in the absence of a clear answer to this question, whether there could be circumstances in which those rights might also be nullified.