Australian International Islamic College v Minister for Immigration

The Australian International Islamic College (the applicant) sought judicial review of a decision by the Minister for Immigration (the respondent) to refuse a nomination application made in respect of a 457 visa holder nominee. The refusal was based on the applicant's failure to meet the regulatory benchmark for expenditure on training.

The primary legal issue before the court was whether the Minister's decision to refuse the nomination application was affected by jurisdictional error. This involved considering whether the Minister had unreasonably failed to exercise a discretion to disregard the failure to achieve the benchmark expenditure, or whether any other discretionary considerations warranted a different outcome.

His Honour Judge Egan found that there was no basis to conclude that the Minister's exercise of discretion was unreasonable. The court applied the principles of administrative law concerning the review of discretionary decisions, noting that a failure to exercise a discretion will only amount to jurisdictional error if it is so unreasonable that no reasonable decision-maker could have reached it. In this instance, the court was satisfied that the Minister had considered the relevant factors and that the decision was within the bounds of reasonableness.

Consequently, the application for judicial review was dismissed.