Novak Djokovic blames human error for inaccurate travel declaration1 day agoDuration 1:52Novak Djokovic says human error is to blame for an inaccurate travel declaration form that claimed the tennis champion hadn't travelled for two weeks before arriving in Australia for an upcoming tournament in Melbourne. 1:52 But the Australian Border Force rejected the exemption and cancelled his visa upon arrival in Melbourne. Djokovic spent four nights in an immigration detention hotel before a judge on Monday overturned that decision. Djokovic's legal team hamstrung, says lawyer Melbourne-based immigration lawyer Kian Bone said Djokovic's lawyers faced an "extremely difficult" task to get court orders over the weekend to allow their client to play next week. "For Djokovic to get the outcomes he needs to play would be extremely difficult to obtain over the weekend," Bone said. Hawke's delay in reaching a decision bordered on punitive, Bone said. "If you left it any later than he has done now, I think from a strategic standpoint he's (Hawke's) really hamstringing Djokovic's legal team, in terms of what sort of options or remedies he could obtain," Bone said hours before the decision was announced. The lawyers would need to go before a duty judge of the Federal Circuit and Family Court or a higher judge of the Federal Court to get two urgent orders. One order would be an injunction preventing his deportation, like the order he gained last week. The second would order Hawke to grant Djokovic a visa to play. That second order is almost not precedented," Bone said. "Very rarely do the courts order a member of the executive government to grant a visa."
