ASIO security assessments of asylum seekers

Image source: ASIO

Recent media reporting and questioning in the May Budget Estimates hearings have again focused attention on security processes relevant to the processing of asylum seekers, with one particular case leading the Prime Minister to direct an Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security inquiry into ‘the management of [by] Australian government agencies of persons seeking asylum who present complex security issues’.

High Court holds security risk provision invalid

Image source: Wikipedia

There has been extensive reporting on the recent High Court decision concerning the impact of an adverse ASIO assessment on an asylum applicant.

In its decision of 5 October 2012 in the matter of Plaintiff M47-2012 v Director General of Security [2012] HCA 46, the High Court ruled public interest criterion 4002, contained in Schedule 4 to the Migration Regulations 1994, to be invalid. This criterion provided:

4002 The applicant is not assessed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to be directly or indirectly a risk to security, within the meaning of section 4 of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979.