Haneef's lawyers get to fast-track appeal

Lawyers for Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef, wrongly accused of involvement in the failed Glasgow car bombings, won a bid to fast-track a court challenge to secure confidential official documents relating to his case, on Wednesday.

The Commonwealth administrative appeals tribunal agreed to fast-track the matter for a hearing on June 16, so that the documents withheld by the immigration department could be provided to the judicial inquiry into the handling of Haneef's case before it reported to the federal government on September 30.

If the appeal to the tribunal proves successful, Haneef's legal team plans to provide the documents to the judicial inquiry led by former supreme court judge John Clarke.

It quoted Haneef's lawyer Rod Hodgson as saying that the appeal was lodged last week following the immigration department's decision to withhold some documents that Haneef's legal team had sought under the freedom of information legislation.

Hodgson also said the upcoming hearing could become irrelevant if the department chose to provide the withheld information to the inquiry.

However, the inquiry did not have coercive powers to force the department to provide any information, he said.

"We can't place our full reliance in the promises of cooperation from those authorities," Hodgson said. "We are pleased to have been able to fast-track the appeal because we think that it is vital that we give the Clarke inquiry every bit of documentation we can obtain."

Meanwhile, the Australian government has set aside an extra 2.2 million Australian dollars to fund the inquiry into the police handling of Haneef's case.

Budget papers have cited the total cost of the inquiry at about 4.2 million Australian dollars, with two million dollars coming from the existing budget of the attorney-general's department.

'The inquiry will also examine and report on the effectiveness of cooperation, coordination and interoperability between the Commonwealth agencies and the state law enforcement agencies,' the budget papers revealed.