CPZ16 v Minister for Immigration

This matter came before Judge A Kelly concerning an application for reinstatement of proceedings by the applicants against the Minister for Immigration. The core of the dispute revolved around the applicants' failure to provide adequate particulars for their grounds of judicial review, which the Minister argued made the application difficult to understand and respond to.

The primary legal issue before the Court was the threshold for demonstrating an "arguable" ground of review on an application for reinstatement. The Court was required to determine whether the applicants had met this threshold, considering the broad discretionary nature of reinstatement and the principles outlined in *House v The King*. A further issue was whether the applicants' failure to particularise their grounds of review, despite opportunities to do so, was a sufficient basis for dismissal.

The Court reasoned that the discretion to reinstate a proceeding is broad, but it requires the applicants to show that their grounds of review are "arguable," meaning they are not fanciful, illogical, or devoid of merit, but possess a level of rationality and a basis in the material. This threshold is lower than that required for a final hearing. However, the Court noted that the applicants' grounds were expressed at a level of generality that made them difficult to understand, a criticism amplified by their failure to provide any submissions to explain these grounds. Citing *WZAVW v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection*, the Court held that an unparticularised assertion of jurisdictional error is vague and meaningless and that failure to particularise a ground of review is a sufficient basis for its dismissal.

The Court concluded that the applicants had failed to demonstrate that their grounds of review were arguable, particularly given their lack of particularisation. Consequently, the application for reinstatement was dismissed.