SZSNO v Minister for Immigration

SZSNO (the applicant) sought judicial review of a decision by the Refugee Review Tribunal (the Tribunal) to refuse his application for a protection visa. The applicant alleged that the Tribunal's decision was affected by jurisdictional error due to a breach of section 425 of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth).

The central legal issue before the court was whether the Tribunal had breached section 425 of the *Migration Act 1958* by failing to provide the applicant with adequate notice of the adverse information it intended to rely upon in making its decision. This involved determining what constitutes "adequate notice" under the provision and whether the Tribunal's actions met that standard.

Judge Cameron found that the Tribunal had indeed breached section 425. The court reasoned that the purpose of section 425 is to afford an applicant a fair opportunity to respond to adverse information. In this instance, the Tribunal provided the applicant with a document containing adverse information only two days before the scheduled hearing, which the court determined was insufficient time to allow for a meaningful response. This failure to provide adequate notice constituted a jurisdictional error.

Consequently, the court set aside the Tribunal's decision and remitted the matter to the Tribunal for redetermination according to law.