2102561 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal reviewed a decision to cancel the protection visa of an applicant who arrived in Australia in 2011. The applicant had been found to be a stateless Bidoon and owed protection. The cancellation was based on allegations of non-compliance with visa application requirements, specifically providing incorrect information regarding his and his family's nationality and status. The applicant had previously visited Iraq and, in sponsoring his wife's partner visa application, had stated that his wife and children were Iraqi citizens, who subsequently obtained Iraqi passports.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicant had provided incorrect information in his protection visa application, thereby failing to comply with the requirements of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) and justifying the cancellation of his visa under section 109. This involved assessing the applicant's genuine belief regarding his statelessness at the time of his protection visa application, considering the country information available, and evaluating the significance of the documentation obtained by his wife and children.

The Tribunal found that while the applicant had provided some contradictory information, particularly concerning his family's nationality in the 2013 partner visa application, this did not reach the requisite level of satisfaction to establish non-compliance. The Tribunal accepted the applicant's explanation for his temporary returns to Iraq and was not satisfied that his responses regarding his and his family's status as stateless persons at the time of his protection visa application were incorrect. The Tribunal noted that the country information regarding Bidoon obtaining Iraqi citizenship was not definitive and that the cancellation delegate had not adequately explored the circumstances surrounding the issuance of the passports to the applicant's wife and children. Crucially, the Tribunal concluded that the evidence did not establish non-compliance to the standard required to ground the power to cancel the visa.

Consequently, the Tribunal set aside the decision to cancel the applicant's Subclass 866 (Protection) visa and substituted a decision not to cancel the visa.