THE 850 rejected asylum seekers on Manus Island are now in an even more wretched limbo with Australia and Papua New Guinea refusing to accept responsibility for them.

The PNG Supreme Court yesterday ruled their detention on the island, which Port Moresby had negotiated with an Australian Labor government, was unconstitutional and illegal.

The two governments don’t know what will happen next and are seeking legal advice.

The men can’t stay on Manus, they won’t be allowed into Australia, and it is even unclear who is responsible for their fate.

“This decision doesn’t bind the Australian Government. It’s a decision in the Supreme Court of PNG, so it is an issue for the PNG government to contemplate,” Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said on Sky News.

Mr Dutton said today: “In terms of the regional processing centre on Manus, it’s part of PNG territory obviously, and the decision of the Supreme Court is one which binds the PNG Government, not the Australian Government.

“But we will work with a close partner in PNG, because we are as determined as ever to make sure these (asylum seeker) boats don’t restart,” he told ABC radio.

Mr Dutton said the detainees’ options were to go back to the country they used to call home, or to settle in PNG.

“We will repeat again today that these people will not be coming to Australia,” he said.

Or in a third country, one which is no where as appealing as Australia and which would be a deterrent to further asylum seeker boats.

And the Labor Opposition agrees with the Coalition Government.

“We would make it core business of ours to find options for these people,” said Labor’s immigration spokesman Richard Marles.

A lawyer working with the asylum seekers, Ben Lomai, pointed to the conflicted emotions of the detainees.

“There’s a lot of jubilation in the camp but at the same time there is some mixed feelings because they are more interested to know where they are going to go from there,” he told ABC radio.

“Now that they have their freedom, what’s next? Where are they going to go?”

The legal problems for the two governments are not over yet.

REFUGEES COULD SUE

The PNG Supreme Court will soon be asked to formally order the men back to Australia, possibly with compensation their lawyers believe should be $100,000 a man.

Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns said the ruling was consistent with international law and could leave the Australian government open to compensation claims.

“The ruling makes it highly likely that asylum seekers can successfully make claims for damages for false imprisonment from the time they entered detention on Manus Island,” he said.

It’s the second time a superior court ruling has wrecked a key element of Australian policy on asylum seekers.

In 2011 the Australian High Court declared unconstitutional Labor’s so-called Malaysian Solution to settle 800 people in that country.

The scheme could have been revived by legislation but the then Coalition Opposition refused to support the move.

Lawyer Loani Henao, who lodged the court action on behalf of Papua New Guinea’s former opposition leader Belden Namah, said the decision meant the centre must be shut down immediately and the asylum seekers set free.

“They were in jail against their own will for no reason,” Mr Henao told AP.

“The government of Papua New Guinea and Australia, for that matter, were not allowed to do that under our constitution.”

Human rights campaigners welcomed the court’s decision, saying it was time for the Manus detention centre to be shut.

“PNG’s Supreme Court has recognised that detaining people who have committed no crime is wrong,” said Elaine Pearson, director of Human Rights Watch in Australia.

“For these men, their only ‘mistake’ was to try to seek sanctuary in Australia — that doesn’t deserve years in limbo locked up in a remote island prison.

“It’s time for the Manus detention centre to be closed once and for all.”

GetUp! human rights campaigner Aurora Adams said some people had been detained for close to three years and needed to be brought to Australia.

“It is time to stop the abuse of vulnerable people who only ask for safety and the opportunity to rebuild their lives,” she said.

“The moral case is clear, there is no justification for locking people in offshore prison camps indefinitely.”

Those detained on Manus should “immediately be released and guaranteed full constitutional rights”, added Amnesty International’s director for South East Asia Rafendi Djamin.

“There has been enough suffering,” Mr Djamin said. “It is time that the Australian government closed down the Manus Island detention centre, and the asylum seekers should be welcomed to Australia.”

Australia has long defended its policy, saying it has prevented the deaths of asylum seekers at sea and secured its borders.

Under the previous Labor government, at least 1200 people died trying to reach Australia by boat between 2008 and 2013.

— With AAP