Awad and Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application for Australian citizenship by conferral made by Mr Thaar Zuhair Awad, a citizen of Iraq. The central dispute concerned whether Mr Awad was of good character, as required by the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* (Cth), given his extensive criminal history and his conduct during the application process. The Tribunal was required to determine if it was satisfied that Mr Awad met the good character requirement at the time of its decision.

The Tribunal was tasked with assessing Mr Awad's good character in light of his criminal record, which spanned from 2003 to 2022 and included convictions for serious offences such as intentionally causing serious injury, as well as multiple dishonesty offences, breaches of conditional liberty, drink driving, criminal damage, and driving offences. A key issue was Mr Awad's presentation of his criminal history, including denials of certain offences despite guilty pleas and the provision of potentially false or misleading information in his citizenship application and a statutory declaration. The Tribunal also considered various character references provided by Mr Awad and the oral evidence of a friend and counsellor.

The Tribunal reasoned that Mr Awad's criminal history, particularly its repeat nature and the seriousness of some offences, raised significant character concerns. It found his explanations for past offending, such as youth, bad company, or ignorance of the law, to be unpersuasive and self-serving, noting that his claims of innocence were often inconsistent with court findings. The Tribunal also found Mr Awad's assertion in a statutory declaration that he had never been convicted of a crime to be false, given his documented criminal history. The character references provided were generally of a vague nature and did not adequately address his offending. Consequently, the Tribunal was not satisfied that Mr Awad was of good character at the time of its decision. The Tribunal affirmed the decision under review, which was the refusal of Mr Awad's citizenship application.