For nearly 20 years, the Commonwealth operated under the mistaken assumption that it was allowed to hold people in immigration detention indefinitely. In 2023, the High Court’s landmark ruling confirmed otherwise. We are now about to see the fallout of those events, with the government facing potential civil liability to people who, as it turns out, were unlawfully detained. A new High Court judgment in a case called Abdel-Hady vs the Commonwealth has left the door open for a man who was unlaw