Buchwald v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection

In Buchwald v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, the applicant, Mr Buchwald, challenged the Minister's decision to cancel his visa under s 501(2) of the Migration Act. The key issues before the court were whether the Minister erred by ignoring relevant material or making a finding based on no evidence in assessing the seriousness of Mr Buchwald's offending and the risk he posed to the Australian community, and whether the Minister erred by relying on irrelevant material and failing to make his decision based on the most-current material available concerning the applicant's criminal record.

The court found that the Minister's finding regarding the victim's injuries was not an error of law and did not constitute jurisdictional error. The court considered whether the "no evidence" ground of review must relate to a jurisdictional fact and concluded that it did not in this case. Regarding the second ground, the court determined that even if there was a jurisdictional error, Mr Buchwald was not denied the possibility of a successful outcome. The court discussed what constitutes "relevant considerations" for s 501 of the Migration Act and concluded that a jurisdictional error was not established. Consequently, the application was dismissed.

The final orders of the court were that the application be dismissed, and that the applicant file and serve any submissions in relation to the costs of the application by 1 March 2016. If the applicant filed such submissions, the respondent would have until 8 March 2016 to file their own submissions. If no submissions were filed, the applicant would pay the respondent's costs of the application.