Australia’s high court orders ankle bracelets be removed and curfews end for 43 former immigration detainees | Australian politics

Dozens of former immigration detainees who have already served prison sentences will have their ankle bracelets removed and curfews lifted, with the high court once again striking down laws targeting the group.

On Wednesday, the Albanian government’s preventive detention regime suffered another blow when a court ruled that strict laws involving the NZYQ group were unconstitutional.

The decision meant that those subject to electronic monitoring and curfew conditions would have their bracelets removed and must instead report regularly to authorities. This also meant that the government could no longer impose a curfew.

Guardian Australia understands the decision will affect 43 people in the community who wear ankle bracelets.

The case was filed by a Papua New Guinean citizen, referred to in the courts as EGH19, who came to Australia in 2000 and was found guilty of murder while still a minor in 2006.

The man was offered a protection visa in 2022 but it was canceled almost two years after he pleaded guilty to domestic violence offences.

He was released on parole in December 2024 and placed in immigration detention upon his release in April 2025; He was then asked to wear an ankle bracelet and comply with the curfew.

The high court’s chief justice, Stephen Gageler, and a majority of the court’s seven justices ruled in November 2024 that the amended laws were not consistent with the constitution and were therefore invalid.

In her reasons, Judge Michelle Gordon found that the law was “insufficient in its aim to protect the community from harm” and that the grounds for ongoing monitoring had to be “exceptional”, such as preventing a terrorist attack.

Following the decision, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said he was grateful for the $2.5 billion agreement reached with Nauru to remove the NZYQ cohort from Australia.

“Fortunately, we now have an agreement with Nauru because the best thing for people whose visas are canceled is not to be in this country,” Burke said.

According to the regulation, the government will be able to apply for 30-year Nauruan visas pending revocation on behalf of those released into society on bridging visas.

Guardian Australia is aware of at least six men who were removed from the country and are living in a former regional processing center on Nauru.

Shadow home secretary Jonathon Duniam said the opposition would work with the government to pass the new laws.

“In 2024, Tony Burke assured us that they were working diligently to address every possibility and every risk that these laws posed. We were assured that these laws would withstand the tests in the supreme court,” Duniam said.

“Well, he was wrong. Those laws have been repealed, so this government needs to come forward with new laws.”

Jana Favero, deputy executive director of the Refugee Resource Center, said the decision showed the government was “hastily passing laws with no regard for fairness or our country’s constitution.”

“We work every day with people who are affected by these conditions; their lives have been turned upside down by these politicized penalties imposed on them simply because of where they were born,” he said.

Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns SC criticized the government for bowing to the “populist fear mongering of the media and its political opponents”.

“This is not only an important decision for those immediately affected by these unlawful measures, but also a broader decision that reminds governments that only courts have the constitutional authority to impose penalties,” he said.

The government implemented the preventive detention regime in late 2023 after the high court ruled that indefinite detention was unlawful; this regime resulted in the immediate release of 92 people who were unable to return to their countries of origin, including refugees and stateless persons. A larger group of more than 300 people in long-term detention were also ultimately released.

In November 2024, the high court ruled that the subsequent monitoring regime, which included ankle bracelets and a curfew, was unconstitutional.

The government subsequently passed changes ensuring that only people “who pose a serious risk of harm to any segment of Australian society by committing a serious crime” could be subject to such conditions.

The decision stated that there were 346 bridging visa holders at the end of June 2025. EGH19 was one of 46 people who were given both an ankle bracelet and a 10pm-6am curfew.

Only one was required to comply with the curfew, while another 41 people were subject to ankle monitoring.