Public servants at the Department of Immigration could face prosecution over their conduct in the final days of the life of a detained asylum seeker, lawyers say.
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The Australian Lawyers Alliance says the death of 24-year-old Iranian detainee Hamid Khazaei came after basic failures by departmental bureaucrats to uphold federal health and safety laws and they could be held personally responsible by the courts, even if their department is cleared.
Fairfax reported on Monday that Department of Immigration and Border Protection documents – released to the Australian Lawyers' Alliance (ALA) under freedom of information laws – painted a damning picture of what the ALA calls under-reporting of safety breaches "at best", and concealment at worst in Australia's network of offshore detention camps.
The Lawyers Alliance says Mr Khazaei's death in Brisbane hospital in September 2014, from an infection to a leg cut, came after he had been left on Manus Island for 30 hours after doctors requested, from Immigration officials in Canberra, that the young Iranian be taken off the island for treatment.
The ALA says there was a failure by public servants to follow medical advice in the case and that requests made by doctors for the transfer were repeatedly questioned or ignored by DIBP officers and bureaucrats, causing delays in getting possibly lifesaving treatment.
Immigration has not responded to a request for comment on the lawyers' report and Comcare says a number of investigations are underway into health and safety in the offshore detention network.
But the agency did not answer questions on whether it would pursue charges over Khazaei's death.
In Mr Khazaei's case, the lawyers say, Immigration would not respond to medical emergencies outside of office hours and there was a 13-hour delay in the response of a key decision-maker to a request for transfer because they had left their Canberra office for the evening.
Now, with Mr Khazaei's death still the subject of a coronial inquest in Queensland, the Australian Lawyers Alliance says Immigration may have committed multiple breaches of the Work Health and Safety Act.
"This incident suggests a number of failures to meet WHS Act obligations," the ALA's report states.
"The primary duty of care ... requires safe systems of work ... and the provision of information, training, instruction or supervision to protect all persons to risks to their health and safety.
"Systems of work that allow medical advice to be ignored or questioned by DIBP officers cannot be described as 'safe'."
The lawyers' report also argues the department failed in its duty to conduct due diligence
"Due diligence obligations also appear to have been breached repeatedly," the report states.
"The fact that it took 24 hours for an request for a medical evacuation to reach the person who could order it suggests that systems do not allow for up-to-date knowledge to be acted on."
Departmental officers can be found guilty of offences under section 27 of the WH&S act, and hit with large fines, even where their employer has not been found guilty.
