Australia’s Federal Court has dismissed a case filed by 73-year-old Gary Newman, who has been left stranded in Bangalore, for the Morrison administration to withdraw its decision to temporarily ban Australian citizens from returning to the country via India amid a disastrous second wave of COVID-19 in the country.
On May 1, Health Minister Greg Hunt announced a “temporary pause” on flights from India and said that anyone who breaches the order by travelling via another country faces a $66,000 fine or a five-year jail term. The decision has been criticised for unfairly singling out India, given that similar bans were not placed on repatriations from the United States (US) and other countries during their peaks, and for leaving many Australians vulnerable to contracting and possibly dying from a highly dangerous variant of the coronavirus.
In fact, in his letter to Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly requesting the India travel ban, Health Minister Hunt acknowledged that citizens left stranded in India run the risk of contracting a “serious illness without access to health care” and possibly dying.
The decision has drawn heavy criticism from the opposition, with Labor leader Anthony Albanese saying, “The Government’s got to justify how it is that the figures from India are similar to what they’ve been in the past from the UK and the US, but we haven’t seen these sorts of measures.” Former Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, too, has accused the Morrison administration of “inconsistency”, seeing as flights from the US weren’t banned when its daily caseload was equally high as India’s is right now.
Morrison, however, has reiterated that it was a decision taken based on medical advice and that there should be “no politics or ideology” in a pandemic. He has also said that the possibility of jailing or fining Australians under the Biosecurity Act is “pretty much zero” and “highly unlikely”.
Justifying his decision last week, he said, “We’ve seen an escalation in the number of cases coming off recent planes that has been far in advance of what we've seen from other countries over the course of the pandemic.” He added, “The buck stops here when it comes to these decisions and I am going to take decisions that I believe will protect Australia from a third wave and help me to be able to reach out and bring more Australians safely home from places where they are in difficult situations.”
73-year-old Newman, who has been in Bangalore since March 2020, however, filed a legal bid for the Australian government to overturn its decision on two grounds: that the ban is “more restrictive or intrusive than is required, and that that Biosecurity Act does not prohibit Australians from exercising their right to enter their own country. However, Justice Thomas Thawley dismissed the case, saying that the Biosecurity Act could be invoked in emergencies and is actually “intended to impinge on common rights.” Thawley also said that Health Minister Hunt’s decision was based on the credible advice of the chief medical officer. While he conceded that Australians have a right to enter their own country, he said that these were exceptional circumstances.
There are currently 9,500 Australians in India, 950 of whom have been determined to be ‘vulnerable’, while 173 are unaccompanied minors. Moreover, at least one Australian has already died since the ban was put into place. The travel ban is scheduled to end on Friday and one repatriation flight will be scheduled each week for the rest of this month. It is unclear whether this decision will be revised in light of the fact that cases and deaths in India are still numbering in the thousands on a daily basis.
The court is now set to consider whether the ban violates the Commonwealth Constitution at a later, yet-to-be-scheduled date.
Australian Court Dismisses Bid to Overturn India Travel Ban by Stranded 73-Year-Old
On May 1, Health Minister Greg Hunt announced a “temporary pause” on flights from India and said that anyone who breaches the order by travelling via another country faces a $66,000 fine.
May 11, 2021
IMAGE SOURCE: ELESA KURTZAustralian Health Minister Greg Hunt