<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/14/thousands-of-australian-visa-decisions-may-be-affected-by-high-court-ruling-experts-warn>
"Migration and legal experts have warned the true number of visa decisions
affected by invalid refusals of ministerial intervention is likely to be in the
tens of thousands, after the high court rejected bureaucrats’ ability to block
applications.
Advocates fear the court’s decision on Tuesday rejecting a Coalition-era policy
that cases must show “unique or exceptional circumstances” could result in a
hasty legislative fix.
Instead, they are urging the government to consider granting visas to desperate
applicants including women fleeing domestic violence, asylum seekers who
arrived by boat and exploited workers.
A majority of judges of the high court found that home affairs department
decisions in line with the 2016 instruction not to send cases to the minister
unless they met subjective criteria were not consistent with the Migration Act,
which gives the power to intervene to the minister “personally”.
Abul Rizvi, former deputy secretary of the immigration department, said it was
an “extraordinary decision”.
Department of home affairs documents suggest in the relevant period after 2016,
it routinely received in excess of 1,000 applications a year for ministerial
intervention under section 351.
Rizvi said given the act contains several powers of personal intervention it
was “a certainty” the number of applicants affected since 2016 would run into
the tens of thousands.
Rizvi said although the “god-like powers” in the act mean the minister cannot
be compelled to make a decision, the court had ruled it “still has to be the
minister’s decision not to consider” an application.
“You can’t have a request for ministerial intervention not going to them at
all, they have to touch the minister at some point,” he said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
