Plaintiff S98/2019 v Minister for Home Affairs & Anor

The plaintiff, identified as S98/2019, brought proceedings in the High Court of Australia against the Minister for Home Affairs and the Commonwealth of Australia. The dispute concerned the lawfulness of the plaintiff's detention and the validity of certain decisions made by the Minister under the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth).

The central legal issue before Gageler J was whether the Minister's decision to refuse to revoke the plaintiff's visa, and consequently the plaintiff's continued detention, were vitiated by a failure to afford the plaintiff procedural fairness. Specifically, the court considered whether the Minister was required to provide the plaintiff with an opportunity to respond to adverse information that was before the Minister when making the decision not to revoke the visa.

Gageler J reasoned that the Minister's power to refuse to revoke a visa under s 501(3) of the *Migration Act* was a power that could only be exercised in accordance with the law. His Honour held that the common law duty to afford procedural fairness extended to this decision-making process, requiring the Minister to provide the plaintiff with notice of the adverse information and an opportunity to make submissions in response. The failure to do so meant the decision was not made in accordance with the law.

The High Court ordered that the plaintiff's application for a writ of habeas corpus be granted, and that the plaintiff be discharged from immigration detention.