Federal Court rules on asylum medical transfers

Medical transfer to Australia should be allowed with only a simple review of case files by doctors, court rules.

Border Force attend Cairns Airport as an Ambulance collects a patient from Nauru who was being treated with a ventilator. Picture: Anna Rogers

The Federal Court has ruled that refugees and asylum-seekers should be allowed medical transfer to Australia with only a simple review of case files by doctors in a move that the government claims will “open the floodgates” to transfers from Nauru.

The ruling overturns a key measure in the controversial laws passed in March by Labor and the crossbench that required two treating doctors to interview those claiming illness or injury before approving their transfer.

The court found that the two treating doctors would now only need to review case files without seeing the patient.

The government, which proposed to repeal the laws, claims that the ruling effectively watered down laws which it had already labelled “dangerous”.

It claims that at least 10 previous requests from transfer which were ruled invalid, would now be deemed valid.

The court ruling from today stated: “I would not conclude from the available textual and contextual indications, that personal engagement between the “treating doctor” and the transitory person was intended as a mandatory requirement for the assessment required by s 198E(7) in order to gain entry under s 198E(1) to the scheme established by the Medevac provisions.”