FKZ17 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs

The applicant, FKZ17, sought judicial review of a decision by the Immigration Assessment Authority (the Authority) which affirmed a delegate's decision not to grant him a protection visa. The dispute centred on whether the Authority had erred in its consideration of certain new information presented to it.

The primary legal issue before the Court was whether the Authority had properly exercised its discretion in refusing to consider specific documents, namely two reports by Professor William Maley dated 2016, two media reports from March 2017, and a 2016 Administrative Appeals Tribunal decision concerning another applicant. The Court also considered whether the Authority's decision to consider a later Professor Maley report and updated DFAT country information was correctly made.

Humphreys J reasoned that while the Authority was entitled to consider whether new information was exceptional, the Court could not be certain that the exclusion of the two media reports from March 2017 could not have affected the Authority's determination regarding the risk of serious harm to the applicant. The Court noted that there was competing information regarding the safety of Afghanistan, and the content of these media reports, which referred to an attack on a military hospital and the Taliban takeover of a town, should have been taken into account when assessing the applicant's well-founded fear of persecution or entitlement to complementary protection.

Consequently, the application was upheld, and the matter was remitted to the Authority for further consideration.