Goswami v Minister for Immigration

In *Goswami v Minister for Immigration*, Driver J of the Federal Court of Australia considered an application for judicial review of a decision by the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. The applicant, Mr Goswami, sought to challenge the refusal of his employer nomination visas. The Minister had issued a notice to Mr Goswami requiring him to show cause why his application should not be refused, and subsequently dismissed this show cause application. Mr Goswami contended that this dismissal constituted a jurisdictional error.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether the Minister's dismissal of the show cause application was vitiated by jurisdictional error. This required the Court to determine if the Minister had failed to undertake the task that the law required of him, or had apprehended or misunderstood the nature of the task.

Driver J found that the Minister had not committed jurisdictional error. The Court reasoned that the Minister was entitled to consider the information provided in response to the show cause notice and form a view as to whether the applicant had satisfied the relevant criteria. The Minister's decision to dismiss the show cause application was based on an assessment of the material before him, and did not demonstrate a failure to undertake the required task or a misunderstanding of its nature. Consequently, the Court concluded that there was no arguable case of jurisdictional error.