A judge is set to rule on whether a baby boy born in Australia to asylum seeker parents is allowed to apply for refugee status.
The case of baby Ferouz will have wide-ranging implications for about 100 other babies born in detention.
The federal government has already rejected a protection visa application for Ferouz, deeming him to be an unlawful maritime arrival like his parents.
That's despite him being born at Brisbane's Mater Hospital in November last year.
His fate will rest on Federal Court Judge Michael Jarrett's interpretation of the law surrounding how Ferouz arrived in the country and whether he automatically assumes the same status as his parents.
Judge Jarrett will on Wednesday afternoon hand down his decision on whether the federal government's decision to deny Ferouz a visa should be reversed.
Ferouz's parents, including then-pregnant mother Latifar, arrived on Christmas Island from Myanmar (Burma) three months before he was born and were transferred to Nauru.
The 11-month-old's family were fleeing persecution as Rohingyans in Myanmar.
But laws introduced last year meant asylum seekers who arrived by boat after July 19 were denied the right to claim protection visas.
Judge Jarrett's ruling could prove pointless anyway if federal law changes come into effect.
Amendments to the Migration Act, yet to pass through the Senate, would retrospectively see all babies born to asylum seekers who arrived by boat deemed unlawful maritime arrivals, regardless of whether they were born in Australia.
