The Supreme Court in Port Moresby on Tuesday said an Australian-run migrant camp in Papua New Guinea was illegal, arguing that it breached the right to personal liberty of those detained.
“The asylum seekers had no intention of entering and remaining in PNG, their destination was and continues to be Australia,’’ the five-man court bench said.
There are 850 men in the detention centre on Manus Island, seized while trying to make the boat crossing to Australia.
Canberra has made it a policy that no asylum-seeker arriving by boat would receive the right to stay in Australia, but all would be processed offshore and, if asylum is granted, resettled outside its territory.
The PNG court ordered its government and that of Australia to immediately take steps to end the detentions.
“The arrangement for the Manus Island camp was outside the constitutional and legal framework in PNG,’’ it ruled.
However, it added that the case was filed by Papua New Guinea opposition, leader Belden Norman Namah.