GJDB and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship)

The Federal Court of Australia considered the meaning of "identity" for the purposes of section 24(3) of the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* (Cth) in a dispute between GJDB and the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. The applicant sought citizenship by conferral, but a delegate of the Minister was not satisfied of the applicant's identity. The applicant claimed to be an Afghan national who had fled to Pakistan, and held Pakistani identity documents under a different name. These documents were found to have been obtained fraudulently.

The primary legal issue before the Court was to determine the correct interpretation of "identity" as used in section 24(3) of the Act, which requires the Minister to be satisfied of a person's identity before approving their application for citizenship. The Court also considered the application of ministerial policy instructions concerning the assessment of identity, and whether such instructions were binding on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Justice Kyrou, President, reasoned that the word "identity" in section 24(3) refers to the sameness of a human being, meaning the person is who they claim to be. This identity is a continuum from birth to death, and while attributes such as name, appearance, nationality, and life experiences may change or be subject to fraud, they are not to be conflated with or treated as equivalent to the person's fundamental identity. The Court noted that ministerial policy instructions, while not binding on the Tribunal in the same way as legislation, could be adopted if considered helpful in the process of forming a statutory state of satisfaction.

The Court found that despite the fraudulent acquisition of Pakistani identity documents and the use of a different name, there was strong evidence of a continuum in the applicant's claimed identity. Consequently, the delegate's decision was set aside, and the matter was remitted to the Minister for reconsideration with a direction that the prohibition in section 24(3) of the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* did not apply to the applicant.