Heo v Minister for Immigration

The applicant, Mr Heo, sought judicial review of a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) which affirmed the Minister for Immigration's refusal to grant business visas to himself and his co-applicants. The AAT had found that the principal applicant did not possess the requisite skills for the business visa subclass.

The central legal issue before the Federal Court was whether the AAT had committed a jurisdictional error by giving undue weight to material submitted by the applicants after the hearing had concluded, or by failing to give sufficient weight to other evidence. The applicants contended that the Tribunal's approach to this evidence was unreasonable and amounted to a failure to provide adequate reasons for its decision.

Justice Driver found that the AAT had not committed jurisdictional error. His Honour held that the Tribunal was entitled to consider all the material before it, including that submitted late, and to determine the weight it should accord to each piece of evidence. The Tribunal's reasons adequately explained its findings regarding the principal applicant's skills and the overall assessment of the application, and its approach to the evidence was not demonstrably unreasonable. The application for judicial review was therefore dismissed.