Le v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection

In the case of Le v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, the applicant, a Vietnamese national who had been living in Australia since 1986, challenged the decision of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to cancel his visa on the basis that he failed the character test. The applicant had previously been convicted of serious criminal offences, but the central issue in the case concerned the legal consequences of the Minister's decision to cancel his visa, specifically whether the Minister failed to take into account the fact that the applicant would lose his Vietnamese citizenship and thus be liable to indefinite detention in Australia.

The legal issues the Court was required to decide included whether the Minister was bound to consider the legal consequences of cancelling the applicant's visa, whether the Minister had in fact taken those consequences into account, and whether the Court should exercise its discretion to refuse relief. The Court held that the Minister was indeed bound to consider the legal consequences of cancelling the visa, as these were relevant considerations under the Migration Act. The Court found that the Minister had not taken these consequences into account, as the International Treaty Obligations Assessment, which was before the Minister, indicated that the applicant would lose his Vietnamese citizenship by 1 July 2014, a fact the Minister's reasons did not mention. The Court also held that the Minister's failure to take into account the legal consequences amounted to a jurisdictional error.

Consequently, the Court allowed the application for judicial review. It issued a writ of certiorari to quash the Minister's decision to cancel the applicant's visa and ordered the Minister to pay the applicant's costs. The Court found that the applicant's loss of Vietnamese citizenship, and the resulting indefinite detention in Australia, were significant consequences that the Minister was required to consider in exercising his discretion under the Act. The Minister's failure to do so was a jurisdictional error that warranted the quashing of his decision.