Sanctuary if not asylum?

Sanctuary if not asylum? Can Churches offer a legal hope to asylum seekers in the wake of Plaintiff M68-2015 v MIBP [2016] HCA 1

Recently the High Court handed down its decision in Plaintiff M68-2015 v MIBP [2016] HCA 1 affirming the legality of deporting some 210 asylum seekers (including 50 children) back to Nauru after receiving medical treatment in Australia. Now, led by Anglican Dean of Brisbane, Dr Peter Catt, a number of churches and two orders of religious are planning to invoke the Christian tradition of "sanctuary" to offer church and cathedral premises to asylum seekers as sanctums from law enforcement agencies.

The ability of a person to enter a church and by claiming sanctuary become immune to civil authorities has never been tested under Australian law. We set out some analysis of the relevant law below.

Sanctuary the long journey to Australia it did not make?

As noted by those seeking to offer it, sanctuary is a far-reaching historical tradition. In the words of Dr Peter Catt:

Sanctuary was a concept that was certainly alive in the Middle Ages when people could go to a church...and claim sanctuary ...[I]t was a way of saying I'm entering into God's territory, away from the civic authorities that are oppressing me, and the oppressors generally accepted that the church could offer sanctuary to people.1

Sanctuary does indeed have a long history, being even sourced to the Old Testament records of sanctuary being sought in the altar of the Hebrew temple (see for example 1 Kings 1:49-53). Another source comes from the Greek concept of asylum which means roughly "what cannot be seized" or what is inviolable, while an early adoption in international law is found in the Treaty of Qadesh between Ramses II of Egypt and...