Australian court rules grants Jewish family right to have immigration request re-examined

Australia's High Court has found against the government's restrictive immigration policy. In a unanimous judgment, it ruled that Australia must give protection to an asylum-seeker even where refuge is offered in a third country. A Jewish Russian father and his son successfully appealed to the High Court, which found that the Immigration Department should consider their application for asylum, despite the likelihood that Israel would accept the pair under its law of return. The 45-year-old father and his 23-year-old son did not want to go to Israel as the wife was not Jewish and they did not want to undergo military service, because they were pacifists. Australia still had obligations under the UN Convention on Refugees, despite Israeli law, which has extended residency rights to all Jews of the Diaspora since 1970, the judges held. The federal Government would have to enact legislation to allow it to escape its obligations under the UN convention, the decision stated.