SZSRD v Minister for Immigration

The applicant, SZSRD, sought judicial review of a decision made by the Minister for Immigration. The core of the dispute concerned whether an independent merits reviewer had failed to afford the applicant procedural fairness by not considering a current country guidance note for Iran.

The legal issue before the court was whether the reviewer had erred in law by failing to consider a country guidance note that was current at the time of the review, and whether this failure amounted to a denial of procedural fairness. The court also considered whether the reviewer could be taken to have constructively considered the document, or if a mere reference to submissions containing references to the document was sufficient engagement with the underlying country information.

The court referred to the case of *SZRMA v Minister for Immigration & Anor* [2012] FMCA 949, where it was held that country guidance notes, prepared by the Department and the Tribunal to guide decision-makers, fall into a special category. In *SZRMA*, the reviewer should have checked for a more recent country advice note, as the updated 2011 note contained material supportive of the applicant's claims. The court in *SZRMA* found that it could not be safely concluded that reference to the up-to-date guidance note would not have affected the outcome. In the present case, the Minister argued that the Tribunal did have regard to the Country Advice and that a reference to submissions containing references to a document could be sufficient engagement with the underlying country information, provided there was active intellectual engagement. The Minister also submitted that it was not necessary for the Tribunal to expressly refer to specific paragraphs if those paragraphs were not considered crucial by the applicant's own advisor.