Aue18 v Minister for Home Affairs

The applicant, Aue18, sought judicial review of a decision by the Minister for Home Affairs to refuse to grant a protection visa. The applicant, who arrived in Australia on 10 March 2018, claimed to be a citizen of Samoa and alleged that he feared persecution in Samoa due to his membership of a particular social group. The Minister's delegate refused the protection visa application on 18 December 2019, finding that the applicant had not established a well-founded fear of persecution. The applicant subsequently sought review of this decision in the Federal Court of Australia.

The primary legal issue before Emmett J was whether the delegate's decision to refuse the protection visa was affected by jurisdictional error. Specifically, the court was required to determine if the delegate had failed to consider relevant considerations or had taken into account irrelevant considerations when assessing the applicant's claim for a protection visa. This involved an examination of whether the delegate had properly applied the criteria set out in the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) and the *Migration Regulations 1994* (Cth) to the facts of the applicant's case.

Emmett J found that the delegate had made a jurisdictional error by failing to adequately consider the applicant's evidence regarding his alleged membership of a particular social group and the potential for persecution based on that membership. The court reasoned that the delegate's assessment of this aspect of the claim was superficial and did not engage with the substance of the applicant's submissions. Consequently, the delegate's decision was vitiated by error, as it did not properly address all the elements required for a valid assessment of the protection visa application.

The court ordered that the decision of the Minister's delegate be set aside and remitted to the Minister for reconsideration according to law.