Plaintiff M87/2023 and Minister For Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs

The applicant, Plaintiff M87/2023, sought judicial review of a decision made by the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. The dispute concerned the lawfulness of the Minister's decision to refuse to revoke a protection visa cancellation. The matter came before Steward J of the Federal Court of Australia.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether the Minister's delegate had failed to consider relevant considerations and had taken into account irrelevant considerations when refusing to revoke the cancellation of the applicant's protection visa. Specifically, the applicant argued that the delegate had failed to give adequate weight to the applicant's submissions regarding their rehabilitation and their changed circumstances, and had impermissibly relied on the original reasons for the visa cancellation without properly assessing the current risk of harm.

Steward J found that the delegate's decision-making process was flawed. The Court held that the delegate had failed to properly engage with the applicant's evidence of rehabilitation and had not adequately assessed whether the original grounds for cancellation still posed a real chance of harm in the present circumstances. The delegate's reasoning was found to be superficial and did not demonstrate a proper consideration of the applicant's submissions as required by the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) and relevant administrative law principles.

The Court ordered that the decision of the Minister's delegate be set aside and remitted to the Minister for redetermination according to law.