RPQB and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs (Migration)

This matter concerned an application by RPQB (the Applicant) to review a decision by the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs (the Minister) to refuse to revoke the cancellation of the Applicant's visa. The Applicant had previously been granted a Class XB Subclass 200 Refugee (permanent) visa. The Minister's decision under review was that the Applicant's visa cancellation, originally made under s 501(3A) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth), would not be revoked.

The primary legal issue before the court was whether the Minister's decision to refuse to revoke the visa cancellation was affected by jurisdictional error. This required the court to consider the Applicant's criminal history, particularly offences committed after a previous decision to revoke the initial cancellation, and whether the Applicant continued to satisfy the character requirements for holding a visa. The court was also required to assess the seriousness of the Applicant's offending in light of the Minister's discretion under s 501CA(4) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth).

The court reasoned that the Applicant's criminal history, which included multiple convictions for violent offences and offences against police officers, demonstrated a persistent pattern of serious offending. This pattern resumed shortly after a previous decision to revoke an earlier visa cancellation, which had explicitly warned the Applicant about potential future reconsideration of his visa on character grounds in the event of further criminal offending. The court found that the totality of the Applicant's offending history was objectively very serious, and that the Applicant had not provided any substantial mitigating factors to warrant the exercise of discretion to revoke the cancellation.

Consequently, the court affirmed the Minister's decision to refuse to revoke the cancellation of the Applicant's visa. The court found that it could not exercise the discretion to revoke the cancellation, and therefore the original decision to cancel the Applicant's visa stood.