Crown Law have filed an appeal against a High Court decision made today supporting a 501 deportee's claim that the supervision conditions he was placed under upon arrival in the country conflicted with the New Zealand Bill of Rights.
Justice Cheryl Gwyn sided with the deportee, colloquially known as "G", in what advocates are describing as a landmark win for convicted criminals re-entering New Zealand society.
Notable breaches of the Act include the taking of fingerprints, DNA samples, and restricting freedom of movement.
Filipa Payne, a 501 deportee advocate, says the decision is a great win for those who "have had their human rights breached for seven years now".
"It's giving the guys who have been through the removal system some empowerment, some sense of dignity, and some sense of equality in our society," she says.
Auckland University of Technology law lecturer Kris Gledhill also supports the ruling, saying the breaches of the bill are "pretty obvious when you stand back and look at it".
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded to the High Court's decision, defending the Government's intentions to protect communities, but saying that ministers needed to evaluate the findings of the ruling.
"We've put in place provisions that we believe were necessary to keep communities safe. The High Court has made its findings, we need to go and look at those, but top of mind will continue to be community safety."
Under the judgement, G's photos, fingerprints and DNA are to be wiped from all national databases.
But Crown Law disagree with the decision, and have appealed for an "urgent fixture in light of the potential impact of that decision on the management regime established under the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act 2015".
"Human rights breached for seven years"
The conditions 501 deportees are placed under follow the Returning Offenders Act passed in 2015 by the National-led government.
In 2017, the New Zealand Law Society (NZLS) expressed "unease" about the Act in the context of the Bill of Rights, saying it could lead to "retroactive penalties and double jeopardy", meaning being punished twice.
It proposed four amendments to the bill, none of which were picked up by the Labour-led coalition at the time.
In response to today's ruling, NZLS said in a statement to 1News that this case demonstrates the importance of public consultation in the legislative process.
Gledhill says that the judgment could set a new legal precedent, allowing more than 2,000 deportees to challenge the act that currently covers them.
"There's a good argument this legislation from 2015 really shouldn't be applied to anybody," he says, "therefore anybody who's affected by it really can come to court and say please give me the same outcome."
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