Khalaj Amir Hosseini and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship)

This matter concerned an application for Australian citizenship by conferral by Khalaj Amir Hosseini, the applicant, against a decision of the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. The core dispute revolved around whether the applicant was a person of good character, a requirement for citizenship by conferral. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal was tasked with reviewing the Minister's decision to refuse the application.

The legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the applicant had demonstrated he was a person of good character, as required by the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* (Cth), and whether the Minister's decision to refuse the application on character grounds should be affirmed. This involved considering the applicant's conduct, including his initial false declarations about his date of birth upon arrival in Australia, his subsequent provision of bogus documents to support these false claims, and the overall impact of this prolonged deception on his character assessment.

The Tribunal found that the applicant had engaged in a prolonged period of deception, commencing upon his arrival in Australia in 2011 and continuing through his application for citizenship in 2016 and beyond. This deception included not only verbal lies about his age but also the procurement and submission of false documents. While the applicant sought to explain his initial dishonesty by reference to fear of mistreatment in adult detention facilities, the Tribunal concluded that his subsequent actions, particularly the provision of bogus documents, demonstrated a deliberate and sustained lack of good character. The Tribunal gave little weight to the applicant's evidence due to this history of deception.

Accordingly, the Tribunal affirmed the Reviewable Decision, finding that the applicant was not a person of good character at the time the decision was made, nor at the date of the Tribunal's decision. The Tribunal noted that it may be possible for the applicant to satisfy the good character requirement at a later time.