Alqudsi v The Commonwealth of Australia; Alqudsi v The Queen

The applicants, Alqudsi and Alqudsi, sought judicial review of decisions made by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and the Director-General of Security, respectively. The dispute concerned the validity of security assessments made under the *Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979* (Cth) and the subsequent cancellation of the applicants' security clearances. The matter was heard by the High Court of Australia.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether the Director-General of Security had acted unlawfully in making the security assessments, and whether the Minister had acted unlawfully in cancelling the applicants' security clearances based on those assessments. Specifically, the court considered whether the Director-General had failed to afford the applicants procedural fairness and whether the Minister's decision was affected by an error of law.

French CJ, in his judgment, addressed the nature of the Director-General's function in making security assessments, characterising it as administrative rather than judicial. His Honour found that the *Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979* did not impose a duty to afford procedural fairness to individuals subject to such assessments. Consequently, the Director-General's decision to make the assessments was not vitiated by a lack of procedural fairness. Furthermore, the Minister's decision to cancel the security clearances was found to be a lawful exercise of power, not being predicated on an unlawful assessment.

The applications for judicial review were dismissed.