Khan v Minister for Immigration and Anor and Rahman and Ors v Minister for Immigration and Anor

In *Khan v Minister for Immigration and Anor* and *Rahman and Ors v Minister for Immigration and Anor*, the applicants sought judicial review of decisions made by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) concerning their applications for Standard Business Sponsorship (SBS). The core of the dispute revolved around whether the AAT had afforded the applicants procedural fairness in its assessment of their sponsorship applications.

The central legal issues before the court were whether the Tribunal had failed to provide the applicants with a meaningful opportunity to present evidence and arguments, and specifically, whether the Tribunal had indicated its concerns regarding the business's capacity to employ a person on a full-time basis for the required two-year period. These questions ultimately led to the determination of whether the Tribunal had denied the applicants procedural fairness.

The court found that procedural unfairness had been made out. The reasoning focused on the Tribunal's failure to adequately communicate its concerns to the applicants, thereby preventing them from addressing those concerns effectively. This failure to provide a genuine opportunity to be heard on critical aspects of the application constituted a breach of the principles of procedural fairness. Consequently, the applications were upheld.