Women win right to sue Qatar Airways over strip searches before Sydney-bound flight

RNZ News

2 days ago

By
Victoria Pengilley
The women were hauled off a Qatar Airways flight bound for Sydney.
Photo:
Hemis via AFP
Five women who were subjected to invasive strip searches at Doha airport have won the right to pursue legal action against Qatar Airways and the airport operator.
In October 2020, more than a dozen women were hauled off a Qatar Airways flight to Sydney and forced to undergo physical examinations in an ambulance on the tarmac without consent, following the discovery of a newborn baby in a toilet cubicle at Hamad International Airport.
The women said they were ordered off the plane into an ambulance with a nurse.
"She told me to pull my pants down and that I needed to examine my vagina," one woman said at the time.
"I said, 'I'm not doing that' and she did not explain anything to me. She just kept saying, 'We need to see it, we need to see it'."
The women had hoped to sue Qatar Airways for damages over "unlawful physical contact", and the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) and airport operations company MATAR for assault and false imprisonment.
In February, Federal Court Justice John Halley dismissed the case against the airline and QCAA, finding the alleged assaults did not happen on board the Qatar Airways plane and were not conducted by any employee of the airline.
The women appealed to the Full Federal Court, arguing the searches took place in the process of disembarking the aircraft and that the airline should be held liable.
On Thursday, the Full Federal Court ruled Justice Halley was wrong when he dismissed the women's claims.
"There is no sufficiently high degree of certainty that what happened to the appellants in the ambulance could not ultimately be found to have been in 'the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking'," Justice Angus Stewart said.
"It is therefore not an issue apt to be decided at the stage of summary dismissal."
The court also found MATAR's application for the case against it to be set aside should have been dismissed.
"It is also an error to conclude at this stage of the proceeding that MATAR's duty of care cannot possibly extend to the circumstances in and around the ambulance," Justice Stewart told the court.
Qatar Airways and MATAR have been ordered to pay the costs of the appeal.
The Full Federal Court dismissed the women's appeal against the QCAA on the basis that the proceeding did not concern activities in managing a commercial airport.
Damian Sturzaker from Marque Lawyers, who is representing the women, said they were pleased with the decision.
"This has always been an issue about the airline," he said outside court.
"The women have always tried to resolve this matter with Qatar Airways … they would have always liked to see a resolution to the matter.
"You imagine a group of five women bringing a case against a state entity that has defended this matter very staunchly from the beginning, it's been an enormous exercise."
Wolfgang Babeck, a lawyer on the same flight as the women and who initially represented them, said the experience had been distressing for them.
"The attitude that has been displayed by the country of Qatar is not proper for a country that wants to be recognised for world standards," Dr Babeck said.
"It is appalling the women had to go through this stress to be heard."
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ABC