Stefan Nystrom

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Stefan Nystrom was born in 1974 in Sweden. His mother was an Australian resident but was visiting her parents in Sweden in the late stages of her pregnancy. She arrived back in Australia with Stefan when he was just 27 days old. Since then he has lived all his life in Australia, has never left the country, and he only speaks English.

By the age of 30 in 2004, he had committed a large number of offences (many when a minor under 18) and spent time in juvenile detention/jail, and was again in jail for a serious criminal offence.

The Australian Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, under Section 501 of the Migration Act, cancelled his visa in 2004 on the grounds of his bad character, had him detained in an immigration detention centre, and sought to deport him to Sweden. However, she was stopped in 2005 by the Federal Court, whose majority judgement (by 2 out of 3) read: "[Mr Nystrom] has indeed behaved badly, but no worse than many of his age who have also lived as members of the Australian community all their lives but who happen to be citizens. The difference is the barest of technicalities" ... "Apart from the dire punishment of the individual involved, it presumes that Australia can export its problems elsewhere."

As an aside to the main point, some controversary was raised by the Federal Court judges saying "... but no worse than many of his age". However, according to the same court, his crimes included aggravated rape (age 10)and armed robbery (age 11), and one judge noted "the appellant is a thoroughly unpleasant man having been convicted of serious and odious crimes". This has been an opportunity for some to castigate judges for being out of touch.

The Federal Government appealed to the High Court, where a panel of five judges gave their decision on the 8^th November 2006 that despite Stefan having an "absorbed person visa", Senator Vanstone could cancel his visa and deport him on character grounds. Two judges noted that Parliament had left the Immigration Minister with the discretion to decide whether a person such as Stefan could remain in Australia. Despite this, Senator Vanstone said her department was now "obliged" to detain Stefan and "facilitate his removal". The next step presumably is to see whether Sweden accepts Stefan as a citizen.

It would appear that the High Court decision, and incidentally the dissenting Federal Court judge's opinion, was that technically whilst the Immigration Minister has the power to deport any non-citizen on grounds of bad character, she should not do so in Stefan's case. All three Federal Court judges were unanimous in their criticism of Senator Vanstone in this case.