6 Jan: news.com.au: Immigration expert Abul Rizvi details three legal questions in Novak Djokovic’s favour
Novak Djokovic’s situation seems dire, but a legal expert has detailed three questions the government might struggle to answer.
by Alex Blair
“Mr Djokovic was granted a visa on the assumption that all the legal requirements had been met,” Mr Rizvi told The Project on Thursday evening.
“The government is now saying all the legal requirements had not been met.
“The second layer is when the person boards an aeroplane to come to Australia – there are Australian Border Force officers there who can prevent a person boarding an aeroplane to Australia if there are issues with the visa. Now, that was only some 24-48 hours ago, I understand, and yet no action was taken to prevent Mr Djokovic boarding.”
Mr Rizvi said action only took place at the “third layer of protection”, at an Australian airport. He warned Djokovic’s case would set a dangerous precedent that will “create enormous amounts of chaos at Australian airports and as international travel ramps up”.
“That is the last layer at which the protection should be applied,” he continued...
“If I were Mr Djokovic‘s lawyer, there would be three questions I would be asking,” he said.
“The first question: ‘If my client had not met all of the legal requirements for a visa, why did you grant him a visa?’
“The second question I would ask is: ‘If you had concerns about my client’s visa, why did you not cancel that visa prior to him boarding a plane to Australia?’
“The third question I would ask is: ‘Given that you granted my client a visa, and none of the circumstances prior to grant have changed since that time, on what basis can you cancel that visa?’”...
https://www.news.com.au/sport/tennis/australian-open/immigration-expert-abul-rizvi-details-three-legal-questions-in-novak-djokovics-favour/news-story/068753f416aff1d2b487b4e77c463558
more good stuff at the link:
7 Jan: Spectator, Australia: Hating on Novak has become a national sport
by James Macpherson
The whole country is hating on Novak Djokovic right now because he had the courage to do what most of us did not – stand up for himself.
Novak’s principled stance has only served to highlight the fact that millions of Australians have allowed themselves to be abused for the past two years. And no one wants to admit that.
It is far easier to demonise a Serbian millionaire who took a stand than it is to agree that we have been bullied into submission by politicians and health bureaucrats.
How else to explain the unhinged reaction to the world Number One tennis player being allowed to defend his Australian Open title? And how else to understand the glee with which his subsequent visa rejection was greeted?.
When news broke earlier this week that Novak was going to be allowed to play in Australia, a Victorian journalist tweeted: ‘If we still have crowds at the Australian Open by the time it starts, it’s the duty of every Australian to boo Novak relentlessly between sets. Shit is absolutely f***ed.’...
We have to hate him… If Novak is not the devil, then we are all fools – fools for acquiescing to increasingly nonsensical demands and fools for agreeing to endlessly shifting Covid goal posts...
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/01/hating-on-novak-has-become-a-national-sport/