AZAFW v Minister for Immigration and ANOR and; AZAFX v Minister for Immigration and ANOR

The applicants, AZAFW and AZAFX, sought judicial review of decisions made by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, and the second respondent, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The core of the dispute concerned the lawfulness of the Minister's decisions to refuse to grant the applicants protection visas.

The primary legal issue before the Court was whether the Minister's decisions were vitiated by jurisdictional error. Specifically, the Court was required to determine if the Minister had failed to consider relevant considerations or had taken into account irrelevant considerations when assessing the applicants' claims for protection, thereby breaching the requirements of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) and the *Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977* (Cth).

Judge Brown found that the Minister's delegate had failed to properly consider the applicants' claims for protection in accordance with the relevant legislative framework. The delegate had, in error, applied a standard of proof that was not mandated by the legislation and had overlooked crucial evidence presented by the applicants. This failure constituted a jurisdictional error, rendering the decisions unlawful. The Court applied the principles of administrative law concerning the proper exercise of statutory power, emphasizing the obligation of decision-makers to consider all relevant factors and to base their decisions on the evidence before them.

The Court ordered that the Minister's decisions be set aside and remitted to the Minister for reconsideration according to law.