Douglas McDonald-Norman

In its recent judgment in CZA19 v Commonwealth; DBD24 v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [2025] HCA 8(CZA19), the High Court has confirmed that a non-citizen may be detained for the purpose of receiving, investigating and determining their application for a visa. This is an important clarification and restatement of the principles articulated by the Court in NZYQ v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs [2023] HCA 37 (NZYQ). (For an explanation of those principles, see Sangeetha Pillai and Laura John, Josephine Langbien and Sanmati Verma for AUSPUBLAW.)

Across the ocean, in the Indian state of Assam, Rajendra Das was stripped of his Indian citizenship by a Foreigners Tribunal. This is part of a harsh and demanding process which, in conjunction with the compilation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC), has deprived nearly two million residents of Assam of citizenship where they have been unable to prove (through documentary evidence) that they or their ancestors lived in India before March 1971. In some cases, people have been deprived of citizenship based on minor inconsistencies within their identity documents – often simple matters of spelling or transliteration.