Kuel and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (Citizenship)

This matter concerned an application by Mr Kuel (the Applicant) against the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (the Respondent) regarding citizenship by descent for a child, ACAJ. The Applicant sought to establish that he was ACAJ's biological father, which would entitle ACAJ to citizenship by descent. The decision was made by Dr Damien Cremean, Senior Member, of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the Applicant was ACAJ's biological father for the purposes of establishing citizenship by descent. This required the Tribunal to consider the evidence presented and determine if it was sufficient to satisfy the legal standard for proving biological parentage in the context of the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* (Cth).

The Senior Member, while not satisfied that the Applicant had proven he was ACAJ's biological father, found that he was satisfied that the Applicant was a parent of ACAJ for the purposes of section 16 of the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* (Cth). This conclusion was reached despite the lack of other claimants to paternity, indicating a broader interpretation of "parent" was applied in this instance. Consequently, the decision under review was set aside, and the matter was remitted to the Respondent for further processing in accordance with the law.