By Rod McGuirk
Australia's plan to expel 16 asylum seekers to Malaysia today as part of a new refugee swap deal has been delayed by an Australian court challenge.
Refugee advocates obtained an injunction in Australia's High Court late Sunday against the government flying the asylum seekers to Kuala Lumpur on Monday morning.
The men could be flown late Monday pending the result of a High Court hearing.
The lawyer who applied for the injunction David Manne, executive director of the Melbourne-based Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, would not speculate on whether Justice Kenneth Hayne would extend the injunction.
"We're talking about life or death matters," Manne told the Seven Network television on Monday.
"All they're really doing is asking whether, under Australian law, the government has the power to do this, to refuse them the ability to have their case for refugee protection heard in Australia," he added.
The government did not immediately comment on Monday to the injunction, but has previously said it is confident that the deal with Malaysia would withstand any legal challenge.
The 16 are among 55 asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Pakistan who arrived by boat last week at an immigration detention camp on the Australian territory of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.
The 55 are to become the first to be sent to Malaysia under the bilateral agreement aimed at deterring other asylum seekers from paying people smugglers to bring them to Australia by boat.
Under the deal, Australia will send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia over four years in exchange for Australia resettling 4,000 registered refugees from among 93,000 currently languishing in the Southeast Asian nation.
Critics argue that Malaysia, which has not signed the Refugee Convention or Convention Against Torture, has a poor record on respecting the human rights of refugees.
AP