Well written and well said Max. I don't think that anybody takes Albrechtsen too seriously on the law. She seems to struggle with basic concepts and you wouldn't pick that she's got a law degree! I don't think that Albrechtsen understands the difference between rule of law and rule by law. Two very different concepts. Most of the time Janet seems to be advocating rule by law.

The legal profession is probably the most self serving of any, including used car salesmen, & politicians.

That they are only interested in protecting the very grate incomes it provides to insiders is completely obvious.

We could do with out parsimonious BS from them here.

OK Graham, I'll get my coat.

MA210911

The towers from which journalists throw stones at the hapless mass of captors are becoming every day shakier.

Now we have only a limited time and few words to construe a reply to Mr. Atkinson’s and Ms. Albrechtsen’s on the vital question of the ‘raison d’etre’ of a High Court, let alone that of the ‘Constitution’ that contemplated and instituted it.

We call our system of government a Democracy and yet the ordinary citizen is never called to question any law before promulgation.

In the centre of the front lawn of the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne there is an imposingly ugly bronze statue of a bulky male with a capillary, hardly visible, antenna sprouting from his head and a dedication on the large stone holding it.

I take that the antenna is to monitor the many people and pigeons lunching on the grass and the dedication to tell them that Sir Redmond Barry standing there day and night is no other than a Doctor of Law.

That man must have made his living by fooling more than a few. What indeed can be a Doctor of Law when law is nothing but an imposition of power?

Ms. Albrechtsen and Mr. Atkinson, the time must come for those who, like lawyers, cannot produce a scrap of anything that can be called ‘wealth’, to disappear from the face of the planet or the planet will dump us all into the bin of time

Yes, well. Getting back to Max’s actual argument ...

I haven’t yet come across a detailed, impartial layperson’s summary of the High Court’s ruling, and I wish I had access to one. My understanding (which may be off the mark) is that the Minister for Immigration ‘declared’ that the rights of unaccompanied minors sent to Malaysia were not in jeopardy, hence under the Migration Act he could deport them to a Malaysian refugee camp and still discharge his responsibilities in loco parentis. The High Court disagreed, apparently on the grounds that the Minister’s ‘declaration’ was arbitrary, and not supported by evidence. That sounds reasonable.

I’m not sure how this supposedly precludes all offshore processing of migrants; in fact, I doubt it does. That assertion may be Gillard’s pique again; pretty clearly, Abbott doesn’t agree. If the High Court’s has found that sending unaccompanied minors to a foreign jurisdiction which can’t guarantee non-refoulment violates our treaty obligations and/or the Migration act, fine. But it’s a very big stretch to say that conclusion precludes offshore processing by Australian officials on Nauru. Or PNG, for that matter, once they’ve accepted the Refugee Convention. This wouldn’t be the first time that lawyers claimed a whole lot more for their position that the facts merit.

Or, it could be the High Court has lifted the bar. I don’t buy Max’s assertion that judges NEVER revise interpretation of even settled law when they think they’ve found justification to do so. Albrechtsen suggests they might have done just that. If the Court has actually decided to bar offshore processing, and in a way that can’t be remedied by changes to the Migration Act, then yes, I’d say the Court has overstepped. And that would be a tragedy.

It’s not possible to accept or reject Max’s argument without better information on what the High Court has said. I’d hoped he’d enlighten me, but unfortunately he goes no further than insisting that the High Court get the benefit of the doubt.

I don’t like doubt, beneficial or otherwise. I want to know just what this decision implies.

‘Donkeygod’, if he named himself, has insight. But he should read the paper before trying to comment on it. He will see that it says nothing about the rights or wrongs of the decision, because the aim was to expose assumptions underlying a bizarre and insulting attack on the judges.