Abd19 v Minister for Immigration

Abd19 (the applicant) sought judicial review of a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) which found it lacked jurisdiction to consider the applicant's review application because it had not been lodged within the prescribed time limit. The applicant had also made an interlocutory application for a show cause notice to be issued, which was dismissed by the Tribunal. The matter came before Driver J in the Federal Court of Australia.

The primary legal issue before the Court was whether the AAT had erred in law by determining it lacked jurisdiction to hear the applicant's substantive review application due to the late lodgement. A related issue was whether the AAT's dismissal of the interlocutory show cause application constituted jurisdictional error.

Driver J reasoned that the AAT's finding of a lack of jurisdiction was a correct application of the relevant migration legislation, which mandates strict timeframes for lodging review applications. His Honour found no arguable case of jurisdictional error in the AAT's determination that the application was out of time, nor in its dismissal of the interlocutory application. The applicant had failed to demonstrate any error of law on the part of the Tribunal.

The application for judicial review was dismissed.