Kashef Haghighi and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (Citizenship)

This matter concerned an appeal by Kashef Haghighi against the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection's decision to refuse his application for Australian citizenship. The primary dispute revolved around whether Mr Haghighi was of good character, a prerequisite for citizenship, given his previous criminal offences and his failure to disclose them in his applications. The decision was made by J F Toohey SM in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The legal issues before the Tribunal were whether Mr Haghighi had demonstrated he was of good character, and whether his previous offences, particularly the failure to disclose a 2008 stealing offence and a 2012 assault, impacted this assessment. The Tribunal was required to consider the seriousness of the offences, the time elapsed since they occurred, Mr Haghighi's explanations for their non-disclosure, and the weight to be given to character references.

The Tribunal found that while Mr Haghighi had been in steady employment and had not committed further offences since 2012, his explanations for not disclosing the 2008 stealing offence were not persuasive. The Tribunal noted that the citizenship application form clearly asked about findings of guilt, not just convictions. It was particularly critical that Mr Haghighi disclosed the 2012 assault in his second application only after it had been raised by the delegate, yet still failed to disclose the earlier stealing offence. The Tribunal gave limited weight to character references from his partner and employers, as they either lacked objectivity or did not acknowledge his past offences.

Ultimately, the Tribunal was not satisfied that sufficient time had passed for Mr Haghighi to demonstrate he fully accepted responsibility for his offences and their omission from his applications. Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the Minister's decision to refuse the citizenship application, while noting that Mr Haghighi remained at liberty to apply again in the future.