Djokovic Taken Into Custody as He Continues Fight to Stay in Australia
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A day after Novak Djokovic’s visa was revoked a second time, his lawyers went to court on Saturday morning to challenge the Australian government’s decision in a last-ditch attempt to save his chances to compete in the Australian Open.
The hearing was the latest twist in a dizzying drama over Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
During a brief hearing Saturday, Justice David O’Callaghan said a full hearing on Djokovic’s appeal would be held on Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. and told both sides to submit legal papers laying out their arguments to the court later in the day.
Djokovic was taken into custody on Saturday and was expected to be held by immigration officials until the hearing on Sunday.
Djokovic’s legal team asked that a full panel of judges hear the case rather than a single judge, which would mean the court’s decision on the matter could not be appealed. A lawyer for the immigration minister opposed the proposal. Justice O’Callaghan said he would inform the parties later on Saturday of his decision on that question.
On Friday, a different judge, Anthony Kelly of the Federal Circuit and Family Court, ordered the government not to deport Djokovic while his appeal is being heard. Hours earlier, the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, had revoked Djokovic’s visa on the grounds of “health and good order,” adding that the move was in the public interest.
Time is running short to resolve the dispute. The tournament starts on Monday morning and Djokovic has won its men’s singles title a record nine times.
Djokovic’s lawyers are arguing that Hawke did not act rationally when he said that Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19 posed a public health risk and could “excite anti-vaccination sentiment” in Australia. Nicholas Wood, one of Djokovic’s lawyers, said the minister did not take into account the impact of forcing the player out of the country.
Djokovic’s lawyers asked for a speedy schedule so that he could potentially be cleared to play.
The lawyers criticized the immigration minister for taking four days since an earlier court ruling to decide to rescind the visa, and for announcing it at 6 p.m. on Friday. “We are where we are because of the time the minister has taken,” Wood said. “We are moving as fast as we can.”
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Novak Djokovic was taken into custody on Saturday by immigration officials as he fights the Australian government’s efforts to deport him.
Court documents filed by his lawyers confirmed that as of 9:19 a.m. in Melbourne he was being held in immigration detention as a court decides whether he can be deported after entering Australia without being vaccinated.
A judge had ruled that Djokovic would be allowed to stay at his residence until a Saturday morning meeting with immigration officials, after which he was taken into custody and escorted to the office of his attorneys. It was unclear where he was held after that.
Border officers are expected to escort him again to his attorney’s offices on Sunday morning for the hearing in which both sides will lay out their case.
The judge has ruled that Djokovic cannot be deported until after the court appeal is over. It is unclear whether he would voluntarily leave the country. His lawyers did not return emails seeking comment on Saturday.
Djokovic’s lawyers, worried about the media storm around his case, have sought to keep his location secret. A judge ruled that both Djokovic’s attorneys and the immigration department had to agree upon his whereabouts.
On Friday, Djokovic’s lawyers unsuccessfully argued that he should be kept out of immigration detention for the duration of the appeal.
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Novak Djokovic, the top player in men’s tennis and its leading vaccine skeptic, has had his visa canceled for the second time by the government of Australia, where he had arrived last week hoping to defend his Australian Open title.
Here’s a look at how the standoff has unfolded:
A surprise exemption gave Djokovic an apparent chance to avoid Australia’s tough vaccination rules.
Djokovic has won the last three Australian Open men’s singles championships, and a record nine in his career. But he has received scrutiny for his unscientific beliefs, including his support for a claim that positive emotions can purify toxic water or food, and he has shunned the coronavirus vaccine.
Last year, the Australian Open announced that participants in this month’s tournament would have to be fully vaccinated, in line with requirements for entering the country. Djokovic’s participation was seen as unlikely until he announced Jan. 4 that he would play after receiving an exemption. It was later learned that his exemption was based on a recent coronavirus infection.
The federal government stopped Djokovic at the border.
Djokovic was stopped at the airport in Melbourne late on Jan. 5 after flying from Spain via Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He was questioned for hours at the airport before being sent to a quarantine hotel.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, who has faced criticism over the government’s Covid-19 response, announced that Djokovic’s entry had been denied because he was unvaccinated. Federal officials said that a previous coronavirus infection was not valid grounds for the vaccination exemption granted by Australian tennis officials and local authorities in Victoria, the state where the tournament is held.
Djokovic, who was taken to a quarantine hotel pending his departure, immediately filed a legal appeal.
Djokovic won an appeal, but questions soon arose.
On Monday, after Djokovic had spent five days at a hotel for refugees and asylum seekers, a judge ruled that he had been treated unfairly at the airport, denied a promised chance to contact his lawyers or Australian Open officials, and reinstated his visa.
But documents released as part of the legal proceedings raised questions about Djokovic’s actions.
Records showed that he took a coronavirus test at 1:05 p.m. on Dec. 16 in Belgrade, Serbia, and received the positive result seven hours later. But social media posts showed that he had attended two public events on the day he sought his test, and also a tennis event a day later in Belgrade, where he presented awards to children. And Franck Ramella, a reporter with the French sports newspaper L’Equipe, wrote this week that when he conducted an interview with Djokovic on Dec. 18, he did not know that the athlete had just tested positive.
Questions also arose over whether Djokovic had made a false statement on his entry form to Australia when he said that he had not traveled internationally in the 14 days before his flight from Spain. Social media posts showed him in Serbia on Christmas Day.
Djokovic acknowledged mistakes.
In a statement on Wednesday, Djokovic said he was not yet aware that he had tested positive when he attended the children’s event, and acknowledged that he had made a poor decision not to cancel the interview with the French journalist. He said that a member of his support team had made a “human error” when filling out his paperwork.
But the statement, which read as both a late request for leniency and an explanation for irresponsible behavior, may have come too late. By then, Australia’s immigration minister, Alex Hawke, was already giving serious consideration to using his powers to cancel the visa for the second time.
Australia’s immigration minister revokes Djokovic’s visa.
On Friday, Mr. Hawke said in a statement that he was canceling Djokovic’s visa on the grounds of “health and good order,” adding that it was in the public interest to do so. Djokovic’s lawyers said they would file an appeal immediately, with the Australian Open starting on Monday and his ability to compete for a men’s record 21st Grand Slam title in jeopardy.
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Novak Djokovic’s lawyers on Saturday morning were expected to challenge the Australian immigration minister’s decision to cancel his visa again, but experts said that he would find it much more difficult than his first court challenge.
Djokovic was slated to meet with immigration officials on Saturday morning in Australia, then go to court for a hearing at 10:15 a.m., before Justice David O’Callaghan of the Federal Court of Australia.
If he doesn’t want to simply comply with the cancellation and leave the country, he will need to apply for a court injunction to stop the Australian authorities from deporting him while his lawyers file a challenge, according to Mary Anne Kenny, an associate professor of law at Murdoch University.
That would allow him to stay in the country, but he would most likely be held in immigration detention, where he was kept for five days before his first court challenge.
He could, however, apply to the government for a bridging visa to let him stay out of immigration detention and continue to play tennis. But according to Daniel Estrin, an immigration lawyer, Djokovic is unlikely to be granted such a visa because he would have to abide by the condition that he cannot work. His participation in the Australian Open which begins on Monday, then, would disqualify him.
But because Hawke’s discretionary powers are so broad, Estrin and Kenny said Djokovic would find it significantly more difficult than his first appeal.
The minister just needed to demonstrate that Djokovic might be a risk to the health, safety or good order of the Australian community, Estrin said. That is a very low threshold — “anyone might be a risk to the Australian community if you look at it very broadly” — making it extremely difficult for Djokovic to argue his case on substance, he added.
Instead, Djokovic would need to prove that Hawke made an “jurisdictional error,” or applied the law wrong, Estrin said — a much higher legal threshold.
Djokovic’s lawyers will not be allowed to replead his case or argue that he should have been allowed into Australia, Estrin said, meaning that, as in his first appeal, he would have to succeed on procedural grounds.
“The court doesn’t look at whether the minister made the right decision,” Estrin said. “The court will only look at whether the minister committed some error of law.”
News Analysis
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SYDNEY, Australia — What began as a power struggle between a defiantly unvaccinated tennis star and a prime minister seeking a distraction from his own pre-election missteps has turned into something far weightier: a public stand for pandemic rules and the collective good.
And the sinner of the moment is Novak Djokovic.
Australia — a proud “sporting nation” where the year’s first tennis Grand Slam begins on Monday — hemmed and hawed about Mr. Djokovic for more than a week. Australians didn’t much like how their government had summarily canceled Mr. Djokovic’s visa at the airport. After all their lockdown obedience and vaccine drives, they were also unhappy about the celebrity athlete’s effort to glide into the country while skirting a Covid vaccination mandate.
“As Meryl Streep might say, it’s complicated,” said Peter FitzSimons, an author and former professional rugby player.
But then came a stretch of extraordinary revelations that all but erased any popular ambivalence. Mr. Djokovic admitted that he had not isolated himself last month while he apparently suspected, and later confirmed, a Covid infection. And he blamed his agent for a false statement on an immigration document that warned of harsh penalties for any errors.
With that, Australia’s leaders decided they had seen enough. On Friday, the country’s immigration minister canceled Mr. Djokovic’s visa for a second time, putting his bid to win a record 21st Grand Slam title in grave doubt. If Mr. Djokovic, the top-ranked men’s tennis player, does not successfully challenge the decision in court, he will be detained and deported before competing.
In the final tally, a country far from the epicenters of Covid suffering, where sport is a revered forum for right and wrong, has become an enforcer of the collectivist values that the entire world has been struggling to maintain during the pandemic.
As the drama has unfolded in Australia over whether Novak Djokovic will be able to play in a major tournament there, his family’s restaurant in Belgrade has become the scene of news conferences given by his relatives. But it is also a shrine of sorts to Serbia’s favorite son and tennis hero.
Where Everybody Knows Djokovic’s Name
Marc Santora📍Reporting from Serbia
Where Everybody Knows Djokovic’s Name
Marc Santora📍Reporting from Serbia
As the drama over whether Novak Djokovic can stay in Australia plays out, his family’s Belgrade restaurant has doubled as a media center where his parents give press conferences.
I stopped by this week. Here’s what I saw →
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“Limbo,” the former Australian Open tournament director Paul McNamee had said this week, “is the worst scenario for the tournament.”
Yet for days, the uncertainty of Novak Djokovic’s status had hung over the event. The decision on Friday to cancel his visa for the second time could yield some clarity. His plan to appeal that ruling will only extend it.
But coming when it did, a day after Djokovic was placed in the No. 1 spot in the men’s draw, the cancellation of his visa — if it is upheld — could force a reshuffling of the men’s bracket.
If Djokovic were to be kicked out of Australia, the draw for the men’s singles tournament would have to be reconfigured. According to Grand Slam rules, the No. 5 seed, Andrey Rublev, would move into Djokovic’s vacant slot in the draw. Rublev’s place at No. 5 would then be filled by another seed as part of a series of cascading changes.
But if Djokovic appeals and delays his departure, or if his withdrawal were to come after the order of play for opening day has been released, his place would be taken by a so-called lucky loser: a player who had lost in the qualifying tournament and then been drawn by lot to receive a newly open spot.
And instead of having Djokovic as the favorite to win his record 10th title, and 21st Grand Slam singles championship over all, the focus would shift to three of his most likely rivals for the trophy: the U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev; the Olympic champion Alexander Zverev; and the 20-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal.
None of it, of course, is ideal for the Open.
“If Novak was going to be kicked out,” McNamee said, “the time to do it was before the draw.”
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Novak Djokovic has said little publicly about why he has declined to be vaccinated against Covid, a decision at the heart of the Australian government’s decision to revoke his visa, now for a second time.
But while his views are out of step with the vast majority of people in Australia — where roughly 80 percent of the population is vaccinated — in his homeland of Serbia, skepticism of vaccination runs deep. Serbia has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, with less than 50 percent of people having received two shots, according to the Our World in Data project at Oxford University.
Serbians can choose from a virtual vaccine bazaar, including Sinopharm from China, Sputnik from Russia and the AstraZeneca shot, developed in partnership with Britain’s Oxford University and the U.S. drug company Pfizer, which is referred to in Serbia as the American vaccine.
But as cases rise, getting vaccinated is an increasingly hard sell.
7–day average
10,345
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.
A year ago, lines at the Belgrade Fair — the main vaccine site in the capital — stretched for blocks and some 8,000 doses were being administered daily. Now medical staff are lucky if they inoculate 300 people in a day, said Dr. Milena Turubatovic, a primary care physician administering vaccine doses at the site.
A fan of Djokovic, she worried that the focus on his vaccine status was not helpful.
“I respect him highly, but do not agree with his attitude on vaccination,” she said. “And of course it has an impact.”
Over the course of the pandemic, many people in Serbia have come to view the virus as a part of life and become resistant to restrictions aimed at slowing its spread. While Serbia locked down like the rest of Europe during the first wave of infections, the suggestion of a renewed lockdown last winter was greeted with riots.
Since then, political leaders have been loath to reimpose or enforce restrictions. That was evident when President Aleksandar Vucic declined to criticize Djokovic even after the tennis star acknowledged he had failed to isolate after testing positive in December and made errors on a travel form submitted to the Australian authorities.
Though Djokovic’s stance may have hurt the government’s vaccination campaign, the president has continued to support him, protesting his detention in Australia and calling that country’s decision to keep him from playing “overkill.”
“When you can’t defeat someone on the court, then you do such things,” he said.
On Friday evening, Vucic went further, posting a message on Instagram that accused the Australian government of disrespecting not just Djokovic but all of Serbia.
“If you wanted to ban Novak Djokovic from winning the 10th trophy in Melbourne, why didn’t you return him immediately, why didn’t you tell him ‘it is impossible to obtain a visa?’” Mr. Vucic said, adding, “Why are you mistreating him? Why are you taking it out not only on him but also on his family and the whole nation?”
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Novak Djokovic’s ordeal in Australia may presage other battles ahead as the attitudes of sporting bodies, health authorities and public opinion harden toward the non-vaccinated, even if they are glittering global sports stars.
While it is highly unlikely Djokovic, an outspoken vaccine skeptic, will find himself sequestered again in any other country over visa issues, his trouble in Melbourne is an indication of some of the resistance or obstacles he could face in the months ahead if he continues to attempt to travel the world without being vaccinated for Covid-19.
Governments are running out of forbearance, instituting or debating vaccine mandates, and some tennis officials are running out of patience, too. And the pace and direction of the coronavirus pandemic and its variants is unknown.
The next major events on the men’s tour after the Australian Open are the Masters 1000 events in March in Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami. But the United States now requires that visitors be fully vaccinated to travel to the country by plane unless they are U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents or traveling on a U.S. immigrant visa. Only limited exceptions apply, and it is unclear whether Djokovic would qualify for one or would even want to try to qualify for one after the Australian imbroglio.
The French Open, the year’s next Grand Slam tournament, begins in May and appears less problematic for him. Roxana Maracineanu, the French sports minister, told French national radio last week that she expected that Djokovic would be allowed to enter the country and compete if unvaccinated because of the health protocols that are planned for major international sporting events in France.
But in the same interview, Maracineanu emphasized that any athlete, French or foreign, who was a resident in France would be required to show proof of vaccination to have access to sports training facilities.
Some professional leagues have left loopholes in place, but they are also plugging gaps. Djokovic, who has long held nontraditional views on science, finds himself in the distinct minority, with more than 90 percent of the top 100 players on the ATP Tour now vaccinated.
In 2022, the tour will not require vaccinated players to take more than an initial test once they arrive at a tournament unless they develop symptoms. Unvaccinated players and team members will have to be tested regularly.
While Djokovic won in court on Monday, he has undoubtedly lost support in the court of public opinion. The backlash against him in Australia was amplified by his willful refusal for months to clarify his plans for the Open.
The pitched battle in Australia highlighted a new dynamic: Athletes once viewed favorably as iconoclasts are now encountering pushback when they want to play by different rules than everyone else.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/14/sports/novak-djokovic-australia-hearing
