Daw17 v Minister for Immigration

The applicant, Daw17, sought judicial review of a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to refuse to grant him a protection visa. The AAT's decision was made in the applicant's absence after it refused his application for an adjournment of the scheduled hearing.

The central legal issues before Dowdy J were whether the AAT had denied the applicant procedural fairness by refusing his adjournment request and by failing to consider all of his claims. The applicant also contended that the AAT had taken into account irrelevant considerations and failed to consider relevant ones.

Dowdy J found that the AAT's decision to proceed with the hearing and dismiss the review application in the applicant's absence, pursuant to s 426A of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth), was not irrational, legally unreasonable, or lacking an intelligible justification. His Honour noted that the applicant had not responded to an invitation to reinstate his review application. Consequently, Dowdy J concluded that no denial of procedural fairness had been made out, nor was any other jurisdictional error established. The application for judicial review was therefore refused.