Inside Australia's Immigration Detention

Day 100 started normally in Villawood despite that I was supposed to be in Queensland by the order of the Federal Court.  Well, there was nothing I could do.  So I went to the Gym and learned a new way of using one of the machines from a trainer. After coming back from the Gym, I checked my emails.  There was an email sent by the Registrar but no doubt authored by a very unhappy judge!  His Honour required 'a suitably senior Immigration official' to swear an affidavit on the Minister's failure to produce me to the Court in Queensland.  Clear indication that a fun time ahead!! The judgment was by a video conference.  Surprisingly, I was allowed to bring my mobile with me.  The court must have told to the Respondent that I should be able to have my mobile with me.  I needed it just in case the immigration hands in another notice of refusal to me immediately after the judgment.  If it happens and I cannot contact anyone, I might be...

I was told this morning that the Immigration will fly me tomorrow with no wallet, no credit card, no money, no mobile, no computer, no key to the home, no nothing.   I seriously considered whether I should apply to the court for a variation of the order which the judge made on his return from holidays on Monday.  The order the judge made is that the Respondent produce the Applicant to the Court for the judgment in Brisbane.  What can I do if I get the order I am seeking, namely, the Applicant be released from detention forthwith?  I will be thrown out to the street with no money, no card, no mobile, not even the key to my home!  Contacting here and there and try to prepare for all the possibilities, my day has gone.   Then in the evening, I received an eye-popping email from the lawyers for the Respondent.  I am copying the first three paragraphs. 'We refer to the above matter and the Orders made Xday February 2018, requiring ...

Yesterday, I telephoned the Registry of the Federal Court to ask about something other than the judgment in my migration case and accidentally discovered that the Associate to my judge had sent an email to the Registry directing it to list my migration case for the judgment on Friday.  Woohoo!  I was told that I would receive a notice of listing in the afternoon.  Bravo! Guess what.  The notice did not arrive yesterday.  I don't know whose fault is that.  But my case does not seem to follow the plan in each and every step. Eventually this afternoon, actually after 5pm (!), I received a notice of listing with the orders of the court made in chambers yesterday.  His Honour is requiring the Minister to produce me to the court for the judgment.  Unusual.   Strictly saying, because I did not put the costs argument in my submissions, I should be in court for the costs argument.  But since I am not represented, there...

Yesterday was a disaster.   After I sent you my email, put my medical request form and complaint forms in and whinged to a manager who was unluckily wandering around, I went back to bed.  After a while, a guard came to get my signature.  It was another issue which I may tell you some day.  Anyway, the guard noticed that my face was swollen!  I thought that's bad.  I didn't want half of my face paralysed.  So I went to the guards' station.  One of the guards jumped up when she saw my face (which I did not think that bad...) and persuaded a nurse to see me, thank goodness.  I went to see a nurse in the Medical Centre.  At first glance, she told me that she could tell my face swollen.  She gave me Neurofene and paracetamol and put a request for a dentist in.  She said that it was not her who decided an appointment and detainees were waiting for a dentist for years.  I thought that might be the case.  ...

Even the High Court justices heard migration cases in January but my Federal Court judge is still enjoying holidays.  It is February but he is still on holidays.   The High Court listed for the judgment in a migration case next week but my case in the Federal Court has no future listings because my judge has not even started working this year yet.  You are right.  I am cranky today. By the way, the High Court case which will be delivered next Wednesday is the Falzon case.  So if you are a migration lawyer, you have to keep an eye on the High Court page (www.hcourt.gov.au) next Wednesday. The Minister seems to want the public voting to select judges.  My inclination today is the partial support for the Minister's idea.  I propose a voting to strike off the judges of the Federal courts before a voting to select the State Courts judges.  Lazy judges should be struck off!  Yes, I am cranky today.  But I am also interested in w...

This morning, people were upset because three very peaceful pleasant guys had been taken to Christmas Island at 4 am this morning. One of them is a young black overseas student from an African country.  He was here at one time with her sister.  His sister got a bridging visa, I think, last year.  His application was knocked back.  He went to the court yesterday and was told that he would get a decision within 24 hours.  Before that time comes, he was taken to a remote island where no one can contact him.  Isn't that great?  Someone told me that if he wins, the Immigration will bring him back.  But I am not sure.  We will not be notified by the court whether he wins or not and he is not contactable (at least at this moment).  So no one will know anything from now on until and unless he gets back on the Internet from some place in the world.  I do not like the sneaky way of treating a very young overseas student.  Student...

It's Day 88.  Still one week before the Federal Court will resume the hearing.  Some judges subcontract (?!) writing entire judgments to their Associates but in many cases, judges write the conclusion by themselves.  So chances are, until and unless my judge, after coming back from holidays on 5th, starts and finishes writing something, I will be here.  My judge is not the slowest worker amongst the ones who hear migration cases in Queensland.  But he proved to be lazy last year so I am worried....  The slowest worker in Queensland is definitely my other judge.  I have a pending case against some Government organisation in the Federal Court.  I filed the case in 2016 and have been waiting for the judgment since May last year!  This dispute occurred in March 2009 and ended up in the Federal Court first time in 2013.  I won the case in 2015.  After the remitter, the Government organisation made the same decision agai...

This morning, I collected from a guard my final submission to the Court which I had asked her to print out last night.  Then I immediately asked her to scan it.  She might have thought that I was bullying her.  But the Federal Court online document lodgment system does not accept a PDF file made by Google Docs.  So I have to print out a PDF file of my submission first and then scan it again to make another PDF file.  I was not bullying, really. Anyway, I filed my final submission this morning.  The remaining job for this migration case is to wait for the Registry to send me a service copy and serve on the other side.  It will probably happen on Monday.  After that, I will just wait for the judge to come back from holidays.  Since the court will resume on 5 February, he will start working from that week.  Given my case is seriously simple, it should not take so long to deliver the judgment.  But who knows. I finished st...

One of my friends received a notice of intention to consider the refusal of a  bridging visa under s 501.  I cannot understand why he can hold such a strong belief that the Immigration will grant him a visa soon when the notice he received clearly states 'intention to consider refusal', not the intention to consider the grant of a visa.  Just in case he may listen to me, I explained the situation.   As anticipated, he told me that I was wrong.  He knew better.   Actually, most people in Villawood are like him.  My other friend did not believe me when I explained to him that 'setting aside the decision' and 'quashing the decision' are the same.  According to him, setting aside a decision is good for an applicant while quashing a decision is bad.  He knew it because he read it and I was wrong. I stopped trying to figure out long time ago why those people got such misunderstanding.  None of them are psychotic but they are...

It's Thursday.  My plan to finish off all the work on this litigation in this week means that I need to write up the draft of my final submission today.  This paper will not make any difference to the fate of my case so I have a little difficulty in keeping up my motivation.  But since I may want a job in future from the big law firm which the Immigration hired, I have to perfect my job to impress them. So I was ready to be in a full throttle this morning.  Then, I received a call from a sister who would visit this detention centre shortly reminding me of it.  Ooooops.  I forgot that.  But I thought it was the only task for the day and I would focus on my work after the visit.   Then, I went to the visit and met some asylum seekers who were with the sister at the visit.  Ughhhh.  I ended up agreeing to read his papers after the visit.  But his case was so simple and the judgment he got was very short.  So it did n...

I think I should send a bill to the Minister, really. This morning when I was working on the computer designated for my exclusive use in the computer room, a guard came to me with two new arrivals.  The guard asked me how they can log in to the computer.  I asked the guard whether they had a password.  The guard asked me how they can get a password.  I told the guard that she had to request it to the IT.  Then the guard said,  'Oh, I have to request it to IT?  OK.  Thank you.'   What the hell was that?!!  Why do I have to teach the guard what her job is?!!!  Not only that, the guard who is obviously new since I have never seen her before, knew my name and came to me straight away to ask the question!  I am not your supervisor, thank you.  I think this centre's management has some serious problems. The Minister's lawyers apparently have equally serious problems, too.  In their supplementary s...

Monday!  The start of a brand new week, thank goodness.  Last week was not really nice.   First, one of my friends went to the Tribunal for her appeal from the Immigration's decision to refuse to grant her a bridging visa.  I knew the prospect was not good since her case was heard by a notable(?!) member of the Tribunal, who is a former adviser to Tony Abbott.  He said all sorts of nice things to her at the hearing so my poor friend who is very young heightened her hope.  Then he decided against her.  I thought he would do. Another friend got a disappointing notice, too.  In his case, from the lawyer acting for the Immigration.  He was asked for a consent to an extension of time to file some documents for the reason the Immigration was reviewing his matter.  I told him that the normal way was to not give them a consent and drafted a standard two-line letter for him.  But he strongly believed that the Immigrat...

I was told that it was 44 degrees here today....  Grrrrrr...  It was not my fault that I had two cups of ice cream and 4 zooper doopers after lunch.  Guys gave me theirs.  It would be their fault if I put on more weight....   Since I had no skill of opening zooper dooper bags, I asked a guard to cut open with scissors.  She looked stunned when I held out four zooper doopers.  But she was not entitled to be surprised since she probably weighed 100kg or so.  Even though I put on some weight, I am not that bad. ... yet. It's seventh today so that I still have to wait for the incompetents working for the Immigration for one more week.  So I enrolled in Financial Literacy course offered by Open Universities (free of charge!).  The data download is free while here.  So I will enjoy a bit of study.

Happy New Year!  What is your new year resolution?   Actually, this is the question I was asked first in this year by my next door neighbour who barely escaped a deportation last year.  My answer: Get out of here!  Her resolution should be the same but her response was: 'Ahhhh, that's trueeeeee!' Hey, mate, you should be worried about your situation more seriously otherwise you will be really deported next time. Although getting out of here is the first thing I have to do this year, it is virtually the last year's job.  In fact, the Federal Court database stated my current case status as 'Hearing finalised.  Waiting for submissions.'  What the hell is that stupid status!  It sounds as if the substantive argument is finished and the judge is waiting for the submissions as to costs or something.  The truth is that the hearing continues on papers and will not be finalised until February (!!) even though it should have...

I suspect that there are forty days before my lazy judge delivers the judgment.  I think I can wait because Villawood 2017 is nothing like Villawood 2006.   Having said so, I don't like the idea of missing out my guinea pig boy's entire childhood.  So I want to get out of here earlier if possible.  Particularly since I worked so hard to file all the documents early, I should not be required to be here to wait for the incompetent lawyers retained by the Minister.   So I asked all my friends to kick up a fuss.  It is not a right time since everyone is having a holiday.  But since my lazy judge said, at the end of the hearing, that the Minister might revoke the refusal decision after this hearing, someone should let him know. Will see how it goes.

It's Boxing day.  Freezing cold.  It's odd to be so cold at this time of the year.  Christmas day was cold, too.  I was told yesterday that it was 23 degree although Christmas eve was 37 degree.  And I am not living in Melbourne!  Too odd!  I don't know whether that is the reason or not, we didn't have an event called Boxing Day Cricket whatever it was supposed to be.  It was the last Christmas event so the festive season here has finished.  Boring... Today I had a relatively quiet day because I started writing my final submission which I call the draft judgment.  I didn't make much progress.  It is my habit to take a lot of time fiddling with a structure at the start of writing but once I settle the structure, it will be quick to go through to the end. There was not much else today.  Oh, I learned the rule of Backgammon.  I didn't play though.  It didn't look like an interesting game.  Why has that game...

On 22 December, I spent half of the day for telephone calls to all friends to whinge and cry and the rest of the day in bed at BITA (Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation) until at night.  The guards there talked to each other how difficult it is to win against the Minister in the Federal Court.  Apparently, they misunderstood that I had lost the case.  Bloody hell.  It's not difficult to win if the Minister's lawyers are not so incompetent as they were!!  Even then, I will win.  It just takes longer than it should have been.  Bastards. The ABF tried to fly me back to Villawood immediately after the hearing yesterday but I was too sick and tired and really did not want to travel.  So I went to the toilet with a sick bag and did not come out.  The guards seem to have considered to drag me out.  But one of the guards was a mature age law student probably one of the students whose exam paper I marked a few years ago.  She per...

The flight to Brisbane was a disaster. I was locked up in the very uncomfortable seat in a plane for more than an hour because of the lightning.  Of course, the subsequent flight was madly shakey  I have acrophobia.  I nearly died. Anyway, on 21 December 2017, I went to the Court.  I went to the Federal Court Brisbane countless times but this time was the first when I used the secured entrance.  It is used only by detainees (with their guards, of course) and judges (without guards, I guess).  The VIP entrance was like a loading dock at the back of a department store.  Not a fancy facility. The hearing started by the judge taking an appearance of parties.  I usually found the judge's attitude towards me when he or she calls me.  If the judge simply calls my name in the expectation that I will respond by saying, 'I appear on my behalf, your Honour', then the judge will not look after me during the proceeding at all and the chances o...

Last night, after midnight, a guard came to my room and informed to me that I would fly to Brisbane on the next day leaving this centre at 1pm.  So I will go back to Brissie this afternoon. This morning, I took out one of the jeans I brought from home with me.  The largest pair.  I could squeeze myself in them only just!!  Oh, no... I put on weight a lot....  I thought I would wear a different pair of jeans tomorrow in court but I probably cannot fit in!!  Oh no.... I had brekkie with my Sri Lankan friends who are also leaving here today.  I gave one of them my email address as his son is going to Japan. Having had no contact with people in Japan for ten years or more, I am not of much use, to be honest, but since he was desperate, I gave my email address for a peace of mind. Then I had a chat with my African friend while having a cup of tea after brekkie.  I went to the library to print out one case which I will read in a c...

I had a visitor today.  The place called the Visits is comprised of two sections.  One section is a big room for meeting visitors and the other is a place where there are a number of interview rooms.  When I had a chat with my visitor, I saw more than ten Sri Lankan people waiting to go into the interview rooms.  I saw a few faces of my friends.  I had a horrible feeling.  I was right.  They were served with a removal notice.  They are quiet and nice people and they are the most friendly in this centre.  I am sure anyone who meets them will like them.  Can't you keep them in this country? My next door neighbour (the other side from the one who had a big fight at the airport and came back) got a removal notice a few days ago.  She told me yesterday that she would leave today.  Guess what.  She is still in my next room.  Her Mum arranged a lawyer and got an injunction.  Really, the Imm...