Key Points
- Mostafa Azimitabar will appeal the legality of his 14-month hotel detention.
- The Federal Court ruled that detaining refugees in makeshift detention centres was lawful.
- Marque Lawyers, who represented Azimitabar, filed a notice to appeal on Thursday.
A refugee who was detained inside two Melbourne hotels will appeal the Federal Court's finding that the makeshift detention centres were lawful.
Mostafa "Moz" Azimitabar, a Kurdish Iranian refugee, launched legal action against the federal government last year after being detained inside the hotels for 14 months.
He tried to arrive in Australia by boat in 2013 and was detained on Christmas Island before being brought to the mainland in November 2019 to receive medical treatment.
Instead of being transferred for treatment, he was detained at the Mantra Hotel for 13 months and the Park Hotel for one month, before being released on a bridging visa in January 2021.
He suffered from asthma, PTSD and depression but was kept in hotel rooms with windows that would only open by 10cm, often without access to an outdoor space.
Azimitabar argued his detention and the Commonwealth's expenditure to keep him at the hotels was unlawful, and not permitted under the government's executive powers.
But Justice Bernard Murphy dismissed the landmark case last month, ruling the immigration minister has the power to approve hotels being used as temporary detention centres.
Marque Lawyers, who represented Azimitabar, on Thursday filed a notice in the Federal Court to appeal the decision.
It will challenge the finding that the Migration Act does implicitly grant the government specific power to create alternative places of detention.
"The legal questions this case raises are unprecedented," managing partner Michael Bradley said.
"Their answers will directly affect thousands of vulnerable people, which is why we believe it is appropriate to ask a higher appeal court to take a look at it."
Azimitabar said he would progress the case as far as he needed to end the "senseless cruelty of detaining refugees in hotel prisons".
"I cannot rest while alternative places of detention remain legal and what was done to me is considered lawful," he said.
A date is yet to be set for the appeal hearing but it likely won't be before February next year.
