Paul Cutler's Migration Case Law Blog

Giving weight to the serious of offending is important in character cancellation matters but double counting is easy to do and not permissible. Mr Jama was a NZ citizen who arrived in Australia as a 17 year old in 2008. His visa was cancelled in 2019 after a conviction for aggravated armed robbery. Needless to say his 444 visa was cancelled. Clearly the seriousness of his offending and how it...

An application to the AAT has to be accompanied by the prescribed fee pursuant to section 347(1)(c) of the Migration Act. Despite my initial view "how hard can it be?" there have been at least two cases on this topic this year! Fee reduction application In the first case, Hanna v Minister [2023] FCA 604, the Applicant applied for a fee reduction at the time application was lodged. No actual fee...

The Minister has to be satisfied that: "the grant of the visa is in the national interest" (clause 790.227 of Schedule 2 of the Migration Regulations) before granting a Safe Haven Enterprise visa In ENT19 v Minister [2023] HCA 18 the applicant was an Iranian gentleman who had been convicted of people smuggling (section 233C Migration Act). He was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Notwithstanding...

Was it an irrelevant consideration to take into account juvenile offending when deciding to revoke a character cancellation decision? In Minister v Thornton [2023] HCA 17, a majority of the High Court found that it was. Mr Thornton came to Australia from the UK as a 3 year old. By the time he had turned 16, he had been found guilty of a number of offences (including assault/obstruct police...

The giving of documents to a visa holder which relate to the cancellation of their visa is more complex than it might seem. Basically the options are by giving notice under section 494A (using one of the methods in s 494B) which then enliven the deeming provisions in s 494C. The other alternative is rely on regulation 2.55(3)(c) and the deeming in reg 2.55(7). There are some subtleties in the...