Dhir & Ors v Minister for Home Affairs

In *Dhir & Ors v Minister for Home Affairs*, Bell J of the Federal Court of Australia considered a challenge brought by the applicants against the Minister for Home Affairs concerning the lawfulness of their detention. The applicants, who were asylum seekers, sought orders for their release from immigration detention.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether the Minister had lawfully exercised the power to detain the applicants under section 189(1) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth). This involved determining whether the Minister held a genuine belief that the applicants were unlawful non-citizens and whether that belief was reasonably open to the Minister to hold, given the information available at the time of the detention decisions.

Bell J reasoned that the Minister's power to detain under section 189(1) is engaged only if the Minister forms a genuine belief that a non-citizen is an unlawful non-citizen. This belief must be more than a mere suspicion and must be reasonably open on the facts known to the Minister. In this instance, Bell J found that the evidence did not establish that the Minister had formed a genuine belief that the applicants were unlawful non-citizens at the time of their detention. Consequently, the detention was found to be unlawful.

The Court made orders for the release of the applicants from immigration detention.