Bhattarai v Minister for Immigration

Bhattarai (the applicant) sought judicial review of a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (the Tribunal) to refuse his application for a Subclass 457 Temporary Business (Entry) visa. The applicant alleged that the Tribunal's decision was affected by jurisdictional error due to its unreasonable refusal to grant an adjournment of the review hearing.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether the Tribunal's refusal to grant an adjournment constituted jurisdictional error. This required the Court to consider the principles governing the exercise of the Tribunal's discretion to grant adjournments and the threshold for establishing that such a refusal amounted to jurisdictional error.

The Court reasoned that the Tribunal's decision to refuse an adjournment would only constitute jurisdictional error if it was so unreasonable that no reasonable tribunal, acting according to the law, could have arrived at that decision. The Court examined the material before the Tribunal at the time of the adjournment request and found that the applicant had not demonstrated that the refusal was so unreasonable as to vitiate the Tribunal's decision. The applicant had not provided sufficient grounds to compel the Tribunal to grant an adjournment, and the Tribunal had adequately considered the available information in reaching its conclusion.

The application for judicial review was dismissed.