Australia court to hear Sri Lanka asylum case

On Monday 41 Sri Lankans were handed over by Australia and returned by the navy to the port of Galle

Australia's High Court is to hear an application to prevent the government returning asylum seekers intercepted at sea to Sri Lanka.

The application concerns 153 people believed to have been located as they sailed to Australia. The government has not confirmed their whereabouts.

Late on Monday a court issued an interim order blocking their return.

The order came as Australia confirmed it had transferred 41 asylum seekers to Sri Lankan navy personnel at sea.

The government said all the transferees underwent a screening process at sea. Only four were Tamils and only one man - a Singhalese - was recommended for further assessment, but he chose to return to Sri Lanka, the government said.

Nonetheless the move has attracted strong criticism from human rights representatives and the UN.

Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs said Australia was obliged under international law to put asylum seekers through a proper screening process.

"It sounds as though three or four or five questions are being asked by video conference, snap judgments are being [made], and they're simply being returned," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Conditions in Australia's processing facility in PNG have been severely criticised

Australia and asylum

• Asylum seekers - mainly from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Iran - travel to Australia's Christmas Island on rickety boats from Indonesia
• The number of boats rose sharply in 2012 and the beginning of 2013, and scores of people have died making the journey
• The previous government reintroduced offshore processing in Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG). Any asylum seekers found to be refugees will be resettled in PNG, not Australia
• The new government has toughened policy further, putting the military in charge of asylum operations and towing boats back to Indonesia
• Rights groups and the United Nations have voiced serious concerns about the policies. Australia says no new asylum boats have arrived for 200 days

Australia asylum: Why is it controversial?

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said it was "deeply concerned" about both the returnees and the 153 people who are now the subject of the High Court interim injunction.

The agency said it needed to know more about the screening process afforded to the returnees to determine whether the process was in accordance with international law.

"UNHCR's experience over the years with shipboard processing has generally not been positive. Such an environment would rarely afford an appropriate venue for a fair procedure," it said.

It is not clear how many of those on board the second vessel are Tamils. Rights groups say Tamils still face violence at the hands of the military, five years after Sri Lanka's civil war ended.

Sri Lankan officials, meanwhile, say the adults in the group returned on Monday will be charged with leaving the country illegally.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott inherited hard-line asylum policies from the previous government and has since toughened them.

He says his policy is about saving lives by preventing people getting on potentially dangerous boats to travel to Australia.

On Monday his immigration minister, Scott Morrison, said there had been no new arrivals by boat in 200 days.

Many Australians support the tough asylum policy, believing those concerned are economic migrants rather than political refugees.