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.
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”.
Department of Home Affairs suggests in the relevant period after 2016, it routinely received in excess of 1,000 applications a year for ministerial intervention. The decision may also affect “people who arrive by boat and are at the mercy of the minister’s powers” before they can apply for a bridging visa, including 12,000 people who were refused protection visas through the fast-track process.