The High Court ruling was taken to the Court of Appeal. Photo: hafakot/123RF
The Court of Appeal has overturned a landmark ruling over the use of the Returning Offenders Act.
The High Court had concluded the police commissioner breached the Bill of Rights by imposing restrictions on a drug dealer deported from Australia.
The man was jailed for eight years in 2015, two months before the law came into force, for supplying drugs in commercial quantities.
The New Zealander, who moved to Australia at the age of 11, wanted $500,000 compensation for alleged rights breaches and represented himself at court.
He was deported in 2019.
The Court of Appeal said the commissioner's determination was not unlawful and did not result in an increased penalty to the man, known as G.
"We do not accept that the determination resulted in the imposition of an increased or second penalty on G. We reject the judge's conclusion that making the determination was analogous to the imposition of a sentence on G. We hold further that there was a clear legislative intent that the [act] be applied to all returning prisoners as defined in the act from the date of its enactment, regardless of when they were convicted and sentenced overseas.
"We disagree with the judge's conclusion that the commissioner was obliged to give G an opportunity to be heard before the determination was made. We hold that the statutory scheme adequately protects the right to natural justice in s 27(1) of the Bill of Rights Act by the opportunity it provides for an application to be made to the commissioner to review the determination, and by the preservation of the right to make an application for review to the High Court."
The judges ruled it was not clear any rights were being breached by the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act 2015, or ROMI.
"The consequence of the statutory regime in the ROMI Act is to subject returning offenders to a regime very similar to that to which they would have been subject if released on parole in Australia, and similar to the regime to which they would have been subject had they been convicted and sentenced in New Zealand."
The judges said they had addressed the similarity of the parole regimes in New Zealand and New South Wales.
"There was no general evidence in this case about the regimes in other countries from which persons have been deported, and there is no basis on which to assume that the result of imposition of the ROMI Act regime would be more onerous for such persons than that to which they might have been subject overseas."
After the High Court ruling last year there was speculation that many other deportees could bring court action.
New legislation to clarify who it affected was passed under urgency in February.