Australia federal court unanimously upholds decision canceling Djokovic visa

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Australia federal court unanimously upholds decision canceling Djokovic visa

January 17, 2022 05:04:09 am

A three-judge bench of the Victoria District of the Federal Court of Australia on Sunday unanimously upheld Immigration Minister Alex Hawke’s decision to cancel the visa of 20-time grand slam and nine-time Australian Open tennis champion Novak Djokovic, setting the stage for the tennis legend to leave Australia immediately.

The decision comes only two days after Hawke’s decision to cancel Djokovic’s visa, which he said was made on “health and good order grounds” and that it was in the public interest to cancel his visa.

Djokovic had traveled to Melbourne to compete in the Australian Open and was one of a small group of players who was granted a medical exemption from mandatory COVID-19 vaccination by Tennis Australia and the Victoria State Department of Health and Human Services. Revelation of this exemption itself created outrage among Australian tennis fans and the general public, as it was considered extraordinary.

Earlier this month, Djokovic was detained by the Australian Border Force, which determined that he did not meet the entry requirements for an unvaccinated traveler. His visa was promptly cancelled and he was held in Park Hotel, an immigration detention hotel, for several days. However, the Melbourne District of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia overruled this decision on procedural grounds last week, due to the government’s failure to grant Djokovic time to contact his lawyers and tennis authorities before he was interviewed.

However, the drama did not end there and Djokovic admitted on Wednesday that he made false statements on a sworn affidavit regarding testing positive for COVID-19 in mid-December and about following the related isolation protocols. Right before and after testing positive, Djokovic allegedly attended events causing positive tests in others.

Post this revelation, Hawke canceled Djokovic’s visa and Djokovic immediately appealed to block Hawke’s decision. A three-judge bench of the federal court unanimously dismissed Djokovic’s appeal and upheld Hawke’s decision on Sunday noting that the reasons for their decision will be published at a later date.

Hawke thanked the court for upholding his decision stating:

Australia’s strong border protection policies have kept us safe during the pandemic, resulting in one of the lowest death rates, strongest economic recoveries, and highest vaccination rates in the world. Strong border protection policies are also fundamental to safe-guarding Australia’s social cohesion which continues to strengthen despite the pandemic.
Australians have made great sacrifices to get to this point and the Morrison Government is firmly committed to protecting this position, as the Australian people expect…

Park Hotel in Carlton is the same detention facility where dozens of refugees have been detained for almost a decade and Djokovic’s detention at this facility this month garnered international attention to their treatment by the government of Australia. Many protestors outside the hotel and other human rights activists have criticized Djokovic and the government alike for allegedly trivializing the real struggles of refugees, while public pressure mounted to not show Djokovic any favorable treatment. For its part, Tennis Australia has also been criticized for granting Djokovic a medical exemption in the first place.

Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are considered the three greatest men’s players in tennis who continue to play at well past 30 years of age and whose collective grand slam title count is at 60. A victory here at the Australian Open would have taken Djokovic past Federer and Nadal’s record of 20 grand slam titles each.

The entire episode has received a mixed reaction from tennis players and sports professionals and commentators, tennis fans and the general public, with anti-vaxxers and the Serbian public largely siding with Djokovic while the Australian public and other tennis fans and commentators mostly condemning his alleged “deceitful” and “irresponsible” behavior.

Based on current Australian immigration laws, Djokovic would be barred from returning to Australia for three years. However, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has already hinted that Djokovic may be exempted from the three-year ban under the “right circumstances.”

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.