A 36-year-old Tamil refugee and torture survivor who is legally blind, and has schizophrenia and dementia, has been held in immigration detention for an entire decade by Australia.

And he remains locked up, despite a judge deciding on Christmas Eve that his situation was so absurd it could be likened to Joseph Heller’s famous novel Catch-22.

The Dec. 24 decision could also have huge ramifications for thousands of other refugees in Australia who have been denied visas and indefinitely detained under the controversial “character” test.

Deva (a pseudonym) arrived by boat on Australia’s Christmas Island in March 2010, after fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka, where he had been tortured by the army. He feared further torture or a forced disappearance.

Australia accepted Deva’s refugee claim later that year, but in 2011 the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) spy agency flagged him as a security risk, a decision he could not challenge because it was based on secret evidence and reasons.

When ASIO changed its mind in 2016 and downgraded the rating, he was not released.

As the decade — Trump, Brexit, #MeToo — passed by, Deva was “caught up in an endless cycle of visa applications and security assessments while in detention, where his health, both physical and mental, is deteriorating”, according to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

A health condition has left Deva legally blind, and he also lives with an acquired brain injury and serious mental health conditions, including schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and dementia.

Back in 2015, he applied for a temporary protection visa. In July 2019 the application was dismissed by home affairs minister Peter Dutton — with no real explanation as to why it took so long — on the basis Deva failed the character test and his release would pose an “unacceptable risk” to the Australian community due to his serious mental health issues. Deva has never been convicted of a crime.