Australia's High Court has blocked a government deal to swap up to 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia in return for accepting 4,000 registered refugees from the country over four years.
The court ruled that asylum seekers who arrive in Australian waters cannot be sent to any other country without certain legally binding guarantees about how they would be treated.
Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, nor do its domestic laws explicitly enshrine the rights of asylum seekers.
Al Jazeera's Andrew Thomas reports from Sydney.
