Julian Burnside, QC, said today Kevin Andrews had abused the Migration Act by cancelling Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef's visa and placing him in immigration detention, hours after a Brisbane magistrate had granted him bail.
The act provides for a person to be deported once their visa has been cancelled, but the government has said the Gold Coast-based doctor will be held in immigration detention while his court proceedings are under way - which could take years.
"They want to keep him here for trial. They waited to cancel his visa until they saw whether he got bail," Mr Burnside told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
"If he didn't get bail then they weren't going to cancel the visa.
"This is a misuse of power in bad faith for the explicit purpose of trumping a magistrate's order that he should be let out on bail.
"I think it's disgraceful that Andrews has lent himself to doing it, because as a lawyer, he ought to know better.
"We are supposed to be a democratic society. I thought the war against terrorism was an effort to preserve our democracy.
"But here we are trashing it left, right and centre in the name of saving it."
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