Government could repatriate Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps if it had ‘political will’, court says

Australian women and children in the Roj camp in Syria could wait years to be rescued from what the home affairs minister has acknowledged is a dangerous and damaging detention. Photograph: Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images

If the federal government had “the political will” to repatriate Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps “it would be a relatively straightforward exercise”, the full bench of the federal court has said in a judgment.

But there is no legal obligation on the government to bring its citizens back to Australia, the court ruled.