Thompson v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services & Multicultural Affairs

In the Federal Court of Australia, Kendall J considered an application by Mr. Thompson for an extension of time to file an application for judicial review. Mr. Thompson sought to challenge a decision made by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) concerning his migration matter. The Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services & Multicultural Affairs was the respondent. The core of the dispute revolved around Mr. Thompson's ability to respond to a request for information from the AAT regarding his Confirmation of Enrolment (CoE) status with a university.

The legal issues before the Court were twofold. Firstly, whether the Court should grant an extension of time for Mr. Thompson to file his substantive application for judicial review, given that it was lodged 19 days outside the statutory 35-day time limit prescribed by section 477(1) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth). Secondly, and intrinsically linked to the first, was whether Mr. Thompson had demonstrated sufficient grounds to justify the exercise of the Court's discretion under section 477(2)(b) of the Act to extend time. This required assessing the merits of his proposed judicial review.

Kendall J reasoned that while several factors favoured granting the extension, including the relatively short delay, the explanation provided for the delay, and the absence of prejudice to the Minister, these were outweighed by the lack of arguable merit in the proposed judicial review application. The Court noted that Mr. Thompson's migration agent had explained that Mr. Thompson had not been informed by his university about the cancellation of his CoE and had only recently received a termination notice, making it difficult to comment on the AAT's query. However, the Court found that this explanation did not establish an arguable case for judicial review. Consequently, the application for an extension of time was refused, meaning Mr. Thompson could not proceed with his substantive judicial review application.