In this case, the Department of Home Affairs had previously purported to remove our client from Australia while she was a lawful non-citizen. When she attempted to return to Australia to resume her life, she was refused a subclass 444 visa because she had previously been removed from Australia (albeit, unlawfully). 

We argued that only a lawful removal from Australia prevents a New Zealand citizen from being granted a further subclass 444 visa. However, the Court found that even if a NZ citizen’s removal from Australia was unlawful, they would not be eligible to be granted a further subclass 444 visa.

The Federal Circuit Court’s decision is currently on appeal to the Federal Court of Australia 

This was an unsuccessful application for judicial review of a decision of the  the AAT to affirm an earlier decision of the Minister’s delegate to cancel the Applicant’s visa under s 116(1)(e) of the Migration Act 1958. 

The central issue in the application for judicial review was whether the Tribunal failed to afford procedural fairness in reaching its decision by failing to put specific, relevant matters determinative of the application for review to the Applicant’s wife (who was called by the Tribunal as a witness) and in respect of which the Applicant’s wife would have been able to give meaningful evidence. Heavy reliance was placed on the Federal Court of Australia’s decision in Huynh v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2015) 232 FCR 496. 

The Federal Circuit Court’s decision was appealed to the Federal Court of Australia. 

This was a successful appeal of the Federal Circuit Court’s decision in Moocroft v Minister for Home Affairs [2019] FCCA 772. 

The Federal Court agreed with our submission that our client has not been previously been ‘removed’ for the purposes of the Migration Act 1958 despite having been previously unlawfully removed.

You can read more about this decision on our blog here.

This was an appeal of the Federal Circuit Court’s decision to dismiss our client’s application for judicial review. Although our client’s application was unsuccessful, Justice Logan of the Federal Court of Australia said the following (at [31]):

In these circumstances there is no error of the kind of which complaint is made in the ground of appeal by the learned primary judge. Indeed, one way of disposing of the appeal would have been to have recorded that the appeal had to be dismissed for the reasons given by the learned primary judge, but so doing would not have done justice to the argument carefully developed on Mr Salter’s part by his solicitor, Mr McComber or, for that matter, to the response to that on behalf of the Minister.