Sarah Stephen
Four years after her unlawful deportation, and six months after its public revelation, Vivian Solon finally returned home from the Philippines on November 18.
Solon's family had listed her as a missing person since July 2003, and until May 2005 did not know that she had been deported. In October, a report on Solon's deportation was released following an inquiry by former Victorian police commissioner Neil Comrie. The report revealed that several senior immigration department (DIMIA) officials knew about Solon's unlawful deportation as far back as 2003, but failed to act.
The delay in Solon's repatriation to Australia was a consequence of the Howard government's stonewalling on a care package: she will require substantial health care for the rest of her life. Solon's lawyers also negotiated independent arbitration, which begins with a Federal Court directions hearing in late November, that will rule on her compensation. Her case could be dealt with by February 2006.
While the new DIMIA boss Andrew Metcalfe has tried to revamp the department's image after the damaging Solon and Cornelia Rau cases ($26,797.36 was spent on placing "People are our business" on coffee mugs, water bottles, banners, screen savers and pass holders), days after Solon's return another horrific story deportation story hit the headlines.
Australian resident Robert Jovicic, who was camped outside the Australian embassy in Belgrade and interviewed by the ABC on November 23, was deported in June 2004 to Serbia because he failed the character test. Immigration minister Philip Ruddock cancelled Jovicic's permanent residency visa even though the 38-year-old man had lived in Australia for 36 years and knew nothing of Serbia including the language. If fact he hadn't ever lived there before; his parents were living in France when he was born.
On November 21, Jovicic turned up at the Australian embassy in Belgrade, destitute and ill, begging to return to Australia. The Serbian government has refused to given him citizenship leaving him stateless and with no right to work or to welfare.
In Australia, Jovicic had spent time in jail for a string of burglaries to support a heroin addiction. This was considered sufficient grounds to cancel his visa and deport him. (Prior to 1999, the law stipulated that if someone has been a resident for more than 10 years, they could not be deported.)
Jovicic is one of 233 permanent residents who have been ordered out of the country in the past three years for failing a character test, usually as a result of criminal convictions. Yet never before has the issue of criminal deportees been given such a human face. Jovicic, who served time for his crime, is an example of how callously the character test is applied.
George Newhouse, who is part of Solon's legal team, commented on November 24 that the Jovicic case "only confirms that the Commonwealth has not learned from the Rau and Solon cases". He said that if Jovicic's deportation had been the subject of a judicial review, "his personal circumstances and the appropriateness of deportation would have been formally considered by an independent arbiter".
From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005.
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