Reserved decision on ‘501’ deportee case
Former prisoners Australia deported back to New Zealand were not being penalised or punished, a lawyer for the Police Commissioner says.
Instead, the limits on association, residence and other freedoms were more akin to parole conditions designed to help rehabilitation, lawyer Austin Powell told three Court of Appeal judges in Wellington yesterday.
But that’s not how a returned prisoner sees it. The New Zealand citizen deported from Australia in 2019 after serving a prison sentence said the conditions were illequipped to provide rehabilitation.
Deportees were being punished again, he said.
Information held about him on a national intelligence database accessible to nine agencies could make it impossible for him to work in the profession for which he was studying.
‘‘I might as well stop studying now,’’ he told the Court of Appeal where he represented himself. He also said he was wrongly
convicted in Australia on drug charges for which he received an eight-year jail term, but that is not part of his current court case.
The man won a case in the High Court late last year in which the judge accepted that under the regime that took effect in 2015 to
manage and collect information about the 501 deportees, he faced a punishment that did not exist when he was convicted and sentenced in Australia.
Imposing a punishment retrospectively breached the man’s rights, the judge decided.
The Court of Appeal reserved its decision on the Crown’s appeal against the decision.
‘‘501’’ refers to the section of the Australian Migration Act that sets out grounds for deportation.
The name and identifying details of the deportee were suppressed. He had sued police, Corrections, and the Wellington District Court.
The Crown said there were other deportees to whom the court decision would also apply who were considered a grave risk to the safety of the community if release conditions – including electronic monitoring – were no longer enforced.
Deportees could also have their particulars, photograph, fingerprints and DNA recorded, and be put under parole-like conditions supervising where they could live and work.
More severe restrictions were also possible.
The earlier court judgment said the particular deportee was not New Zealand-born but had lived here between the ages of 5 and 11, becoming a citizen the year before his family moved to Australia.
He had claimed $500,000 damages for breaches of his rights, but that would be dealt with at a separate High Court hearing, if it was pursued.
It emerged on Wednesday that Australia was making its deportation policy more flexible, taking account of the closeness of people’s ties to Australia.