Etz18 v Minister for Immigration

The applicant, Etz18, sought judicial review of a decision made by the Immigration Assessment Authority (IAA) concerning their application for a Safe Haven Enterprise visa, Subclass 790. The dispute centred on whether the IAA's decision contained jurisdictional error.

The court was required to determine several key legal issues. These included whether the IAA's decision was vitiated by bias, arising from the alleged conscious or unconscious prejudice of the decision-maker through the ignoring of relevant materials. Furthermore, the court considered whether the IAA had identified a wrong issue or asked a wrong question, and whether the IAA had failed to provide the procedural fairness requirements mandated by Division 3 of Part 7AA of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth).

Judge Humphreys found that the IAA had failed to provide procedural fairness. The Authority had not adequately considered all the relevant materials submitted by the applicant, which amounted to a failure to provide a fair hearing. This failure to consider all relevant evidence meant the IAA had not properly engaged with the applicant's case, leading to a jurisdictional error.