So close, but yet so far
Jul 30th, 2008 by Rebecca
I was celebrating the news earlier this week that the Rudd government had decided to end the racist policy of mandatorily detaining asylum seekers, often for years on end and without proper access to legal representation. In one fell swoop, Rudd quietly signaled an end to one of the worst eras in our recent history, and fifteen years of government-sanctioned harassment-cum-torture of refugees.
Less than 48 hours later, he went out and appointed Justice Robert French of the Federal Court, the member of the judiciary who did more than anyone to uphold that policy, and deserves much of the blame for its continued existence, as the new Chief Justice of the High Court. In 2001, French wrote the majority opinion in the full Federal Court’s decision in Ruddock v Vadarlis (otherwise known as the Tampa case), which overturned a just lower court ruling, and declared that in fact, sending the SAS to occupy a ship full of refugees to stop them landing in Australia and claiming refugee status, was not detention. It was a racist decision, it was a political decision and it was an irrational decision legally. In the short-term, it doomed the hundreds of refugees aboard the Tampa to years of being political pawns, but in the long-term, it paved the way for a string of policies that deprived refugees of their rights as long as the government could stop them reaching the Australian shore.
I detest French more than just about anyone else in the Australian judiciary, and I’m absolutely gobsmacked that a Labor government would even contemplate appointing him to anything, let alone as Chief Justice of the High Court. It sends a very worrying message about who the Rudd government intends appointing in the future, as well. I consider French worse than his Howard-appointed predecessor (Chief Justice Gleeson), worse than the last two Howard appointees (Justice Crennan and Justice Kiefel), and on a par with Howard’s worst, Justice Heydon. And that it would happen in a week that we’re supposed to be celebrating the end to such an evil era of our history, I’m just gobsmacked.