1607110 (Refugee)

This matter concerned an application for review of a decision to cancel the applicant's visa. The Tribunal was satisfied that the delegate had reached the necessary state of mind to engage section 107 of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) and that the notice issued under that section complied with statutory requirements. The applicant had applied for a Protection Visa in October 2011, providing a statutory declaration stating they were persecuted for their faith in Pakistan. The delegate issued a section 107 notice, identifying potential non-compliance with sections 101(b) (providing incorrect answers) and 103 (providing bogus documents) of the Act.

The legal issues before the court were whether the delegate had formed the requisite state of mind to issue a notice under section 107, and whether that notice, and its attachments, complied with the statutory requirements for providing particulars of the alleged non-compliance. Specifically, the court considered whether the delegate had reasonably suspected the document provided by the applicant was "bogus" as defined in section 5 of the Act, and whether the notice adequately informed the applicant of the alleged incorrect information in their statutory declaration and the reasons for considering the Urdu document to be bogus.

The Tribunal reasoned that the delegate had sufficient grounds to suspect the Urdu document was bogus, based on information obtained from the applicant's father during an interview and a response from the relevant police station indicating the document was not registered and was fake. This led the delegate to consider that certain statements in the applicant's statutory declaration were incorrect, and that the Urdu document was a bogus document because it purported to be issued by a police station but was not. The Tribunal found that despite an initial defective notice due to an incorrect attachment, a subsequent notice sent with the correct attachments in March 2016 was valid and provided the applicant with the necessary particulars of the alleged non-compliance with sections 101(b) and 103 of the Act.

The Tribunal affirmed the decision to cancel the applicant's visa.