BHH18 v Minister for Home Affairs

The applicant, BHH18, sought judicial review of a decision made by the Immigration Assessment Authority (IAA) concerning their application for a Safe Haven Enterprise Visa. The Minister for Home Affairs was the respondent. The core of the dispute concerned whether the IAA had erred in its assessment of information provided to it.

The primary legal issues before the court were whether the IAA had made a jurisdictional error by incorrectly characterising certain information as "new information" when assessing the visa application, and whether information contained within footnotes of a document constituted information that was "before the Minister" for the purposes of the relevant migration legislation.

Justice Kendall found that the IAA's determination that the information before it was "new information" was a finding of fact that did not involve jurisdictional error. The court reasoned that the IAA was entitled to assess the information presented to it and determine its characterisation within the statutory framework. Furthermore, the court held that information contained within footnotes of a document, in the context of the material before the Minister, did not necessarily elevate it to the status of information "before the Minister" in a way that would vitiate the IAA's decision.

The application for judicial review was dismissed.