Federal Court of Australia finds Minister’s decision lacks “rational foundation”

Our client has succeeded against an appeal by the Minister for Immigration to the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia in Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs v KFTJ [2026] FCAFC 52. The Minister argued that his decision to cancel KFTJ’s visa was lawful, but the Court found that Minister’s decision was fundamentally flawed and lacked a rational foundational.

KFTJ is a citizen of Iran who was granted a protection visa and then committed criminal offences in Australia. This led to the cancellation of his visa on character grounds under section 501 of the Migration Act 1958. Almost a year after his visa was reinstated by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on 13 July 2023, the Minister for Immigration overrode the Tribunal’s decision on 14 June 2024, cancelling his visa. However, KFTJ could not be returned to Iran.

On 14 August 2025 a single judge of the Federal Court of Australia decided that the Minister acted unreasonably in cancelling KFTJ’s visa for the following reasons:

1. The Minister did not turn his mind to how visa cancellation would logically assist in meeting the need to protect the Australian community in circumstances where he could not be detained or removed from Australia. The Minister had employed what may be described as “generic” reasoning which did not consider visa conditions or other considerations to protect the Australian community given that KFTJ could not be removed from Australia.
2. The Minister did not explain how cancelling KTFJ’s visa in those circumstances accords with the expectations of the Australian community.
3. The Minister did not take into the account the likely practical consequences of the cancellation of KFTJ’s visa.

On 30 April 2026 the Full Court unanimously dismissed the Minister’s appeal in a joint judgment. In doing so it found:

1. The shortcomings in the Minister’s reasons could not be remedied by reading the Minister’s decision generously as “Reasonableness or rationality should not be constructed by a court after the event, relying on matters to which the decision-maker could or might have had regard”.
2. Since the Minster elected not to decide whether to grant a Bridging R visa to KFTJ following the cancellation of his Protection Visa there was no basis to find that the Minister assumed that a visa would be granted with conditions which would serve to protect the Australian community.
3. The Minister chose to treat the legal and practical consequences of cancellation as a relevant consideration and then analysed in “disingenuous and deeply flawed” way. Consideration of legal and practical consequences included the reality of a person being an unlawful non-citizen in the Australian community.

The Full Court’s judgment is a timely reminder that in making visa cancellation decisions, which have important consequences for people’s lives and the lives of their family members, decision-makers must consider the real circumstances of each particular case and carefully reason through the relevant issues. A Minister of State must exercise public power in accordance with the legal standard of reasonableness. As has been affirmed by many judgements of the Federal Court, such as Djokovic v Minister for Immigration Djokovic v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2022] FCAFC 3 (16 January 2022), courts will not interfere in a policy decision of the Minister, who is free to decide the preferable outcome in a case. However, in deciding the preferable outcome the Minister must reason rationally.

The full judgement can be found here: (https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2026/52.html)