Plaintiff M7/2021 v Minister for Home Affairs

In *Plaintiff M7/2021 v Minister for Home Affairs*, the plaintiff, a citizen of Pakistan, sought a protection visa on the grounds of feared persecution due to his homosexuality. The delegate of the Minister refused the visa, finding that evidence, including "open source social media," did not support the plaintiff's claim of being known as homosexual in Pakistan. The matter came before Gordon J of the High Court of Australia.

The central legal issue was whether the Minister's delegate had complied with section 57(2) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth). Specifically, the court had to determine if the delegate had failed to provide the plaintiff with particulars of the "relevant information" derived from open source social media, and whether this failure prevented the plaintiff from understanding why the information was relevant to his protection visa application and from providing a meaningful response.

Gordon J reasoned that the open source social media information, which included details from the plaintiff's Facebook activity and dating applications, constituted "relevant information" under section 57(1) of the *Migration Act*. The delegate's failure to disclose the substance of this information or provide sufficient particulars to enable the plaintiff to understand its relevance and comment upon it meant that section 57(2) had not been complied with. The court applied the principle that a party must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to respond to adverse information that is material to their application.

Consequently, the High Court ordered that a writ of certiorari issue to quash the delegate's decision to refuse the protection visa. A writ of mandamus was also ordered, directing the Minister to determine the plaintiff's protection visa application according to law. The court also extended the time for the plaintiff to seek relief and ordered the Minister to pay the plaintiff's costs.