Australia’s highest court today began hearing a challenge to a deal in which Canberra has agreed to take 4,000 refugees from Malaysia in return for Kuala Lumpur taking 800 asylum seekers that arrive in Australia.

The deal stalled two weeks ago after lawyers for 41 asylum seekers won a High Court injunction against the deportations.

The full bench of the High Court will hear arguments that the agreement is a dud because Malaysia fails to meet the human rights standards stipulated in Australian law.

Advocates for the asylum seekers will tell the judges that Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and so cannot meet its obligation to protect their rights.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, in a filing to the court, said Malaysia had made a “significant conceptual shift” in its treatment of asylum seekers, and that conditions there were acceptable.

Bowen said last week he was confident the temporary injunction granted two weeks ago would not stand. “We had legal advice all the way through that this was legal,” he said.

Canberra is relying on the deal to deter the mostly Middle Eastern migrants who buy passages on Indonesian fishing boats to get to Australia and claim asylum.

The first batch of 16 asylum seekers are awaiting the High Court verdict to know if they are to be put on a chartered Airbus plane for the two-hour flight to Kuala Lumpur from the Australian detention centre on Christmas Island.

The first of the 4,000 UN-certified refugees from Malaysia, all of them originally from Burma, have arrived in Australia.

- dpa