Nauru told members their applications rejected on the grounds of ‘potential for harmful conduct’ legislation

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Nauruan government has refused passports to at least three members of the so-called Nauru 19, who were charged over attending a political rally in 2015, despite the court throwing out a criminal case against them.

The three people, including a former Nauruan government minister, were all told their applications were rejected on the grounds of “potential for harmful conduct” legislation.

The trio wrote to the minister on Wednesday, asking him to explain the decision and detail the concerns he held about them.

“We believe the minister needs to give us clarification on what his concerns are,” Mathew Batsiua, a member of the 19 and a former justice minister, told Guardian Australia.

“We believe there is no real good reason why we should be stopped for getting access to passports. We can appeal, but we need to know the reasons which led to the decision to decline our passports.”

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Batsiua, Squire Jeremaiah and Joram Joram all received rejection letters citing section 18 of the Passport Act, which allows the refusal of a passport if issuing one would see that person likely to engage in conduct which might:

prejudice the security of Nauru or a foreign country

endanger the health or physical safety of another person

constitute a serious offence against this act

constitute a prescribed serious offence against another act

The long-running saga stems from a protest in 2015 objecting to the suspension of members of parliament for speaking to the media and criticising the government’s expulsion of the chief justice.

The Nauru 19 – which also included a former Nauruan president – were charged with public order offences but last month the Australian trial judge, Judge Geoffrey Muecke, ordered a permanent stay in proceedings, saying the government had already decided the group was guilty and would do whatever it could, at any cost, to convict and jail them.

Three of the 19 members had pleaded guilty and were appealing increases of up to 700% to their sentences when the Nauruan government quietly severed a treaty that enshrined Australia’s high court as its highest appeals court.

Muecke said the actions of the Nauru government – and in particular those of the justice minister, David Adeang – were “a shameful affront to the rule of law”.

“The judgment was quite clear and concise, and comprehensive as well, that the charges against us cannot proceed on the grounds that we wouldn’t get a fair trial,” Batsiua said.

However the Nauruan government announced two days after the ruling that it would be appealing, which it said was “wrong in law and needed to be corrected by an appeal”.

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It said Muecke’s ruling did not determine guilt or innocence.

Batsiua said that, other than no longer having to go to court, little had changed for the group since the decision.

“We still can’t access work … there seems to be ongoing repercussions with the blacklist,” he said. “I had a school reunion I was intending to attend but won’t get to now, and I’ve got two kids studying in country Victoria and was hoping to visit them.”

Batsiua said there was suspicion of ongoing persecution of the Nauru 19, and the refusal of the passports was “in line with that kind of attitude”.

“But the laws are there and we’ve got appeal rights,” he said. “We’ve asked [the minister] to reply to it as soon as possible … so hopefully he responds within a few days.”

The case is believed to have been the motivation behind a number of legislative changes, including the introduction of sweeping new contempt of court laws, and the removal of the presumption of bail for contempt of court – which only otherwise applied to charges of murder and treason.

The Nauru Department of Justice and Border Control could not be reached for comment.

