FWQ25 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2026] FedCFamC2G 126

(Delivered ex tempore and revised from the transcript)

1. This application for judicial review[1] of a decision of the Administrative Review Tribunal[2] was filed on 29 May 2025. It relates to a decision of the Administrative Review Tribunal dated 24 April 2025. The Court notes that the Tribunal Decision is relatively lengthy, running to some 28 pages and 147 paragraphs. The Judicial Review Application was the subject of an order made by a Registrar of the Court on 20 November 2025.[3] The Registrar's Order included the usual programming orders, including an order that the matter be listed for final hearing on a date to be advised.
2. The Court notes that prior to the Registrar's Order the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship[4] had filed a response to the Judicial Review Application, indicating that the Minister sought that Judicial Review Application be dismissed on the basis that it did not establish jurisdictional error in the Tribunal Decision.
3. Following the making of the Registrar's Order on 20 November 2025 the Judicial Review Application was docketed to the currently presiding Judge early in December 2025.
4. On 8 December 2025 the parties were advised by email that the Judicial Review Application had been listed for hearing today, 28 January 2026. On 16 January 2026 an email was sent from the presiding Judge's Associate, to the applicant and copied to the Minister's lawyers in the following relevant terms:

Chambers has been made aware that you attended Perth Registry to seek an adjournment of the Final Hearing currently listed for 28 January 2026 at 2:00pm AWST, on the basis you require additional time to find legal representation.

You may seek consent orders from the respondents to adjourn the hearing listed for 28 January 2026 at 2:00pm AWST. If the respondent does not consent, you may file an application in a proceeding supported by affidavit seeking an adjournment of the hearing listed for 28 January 2006.

1. The email also referred to a link to an application in a proceeding form and indicated that the applicant could get further assistance with the filing of documents by contacting the Perth Registry. The applicant, who had not filed submissions in accordance with the Registrar's Order, did not then file an application in a proceeding supported by affidavit, in support of an application for adjournment of today's hearing. On 21 January 2026 the presiding Judge's Associate sent to the parties a confirmation of listing notice for today's hearing.
2. Following an explanation as to the nature of jurisdictional error and what the applicant was required to deal with on a final hearing of his Judicial Review Application, and the necessity to establish jurisdictional error in the Tribunal Decision, given by the Court at the outset of today's hearing, the applicant, when invited to make submissions, indicated that:

(a) the Court was aware he did not have a lawyer;

(b) he had been unable to read and understand properly the Tribunal Decision;

(c) he sought more time to find a lawyer and that time to find a lawyer had been limited;

(d) he had made endeavours to find a lawyer and had contacted some law firms;

(e) at least one of those law firms had agreed to act for him, but withdrew due to the short time prior to the date upon which the matter was to be heard; and

(f) he did not know the law and sought further time to enable his case to be presented properly, because for him it was a matter of significant importance.[5]

1. The Minister opposed the Adjournment Application, noting that the applicant had taken no steps to formally seek an adjournment following the Court's email of 16 January 2026. The Minister submitted that any further delay did not meet the overarching purposes in relation to the conduct of litigation in this Court, and that the Court was tasked with finding a just resolution of matters as efficiently and inexpensively as possible.
2. The Minister also submitted that the fact that the applicant was self-represented was not a factor in favour of an adjournment as there was no entitlement to be represented by a lawyer in this Court in proceedings of this type. The Minister withdrew a submission which challenged the veracity of the applicant's submission that the applicant had arranged or had made arrangements, including fee arrangements, with a lawyer in relation to the subject matter of the Judicial Review Application.
3. As the Court has noted, the Registrar's Order made on 20 November 2025 contained the usual programming orders, including an order that the matter be listed for final hearing on a date to be advised. Those usual orders also contained an order that the applicant file and serve at least 28 days before the final hearing any written submissions, amended Judicial Review Application or additional evidence upon which the applicant relies or sought to rely. As the Court has noted, on 8 December 2025, the matter was listed for hearing on 28 January 2026. That would have required the applicant to file the submissions, any amended Judicial Review Application or any additional evidence by on or about 31 December 2025.
4. The Court notes that that was some 23 days after the notice of listing was sent, included a period during which the Court was formally shut down for at least three days, and also encompassed the December/January holiday season. The Court also observes that this Judicial Review Application was listed for hearing relatively quickly from the time at which the Registrar's Order was made, and indeed, from the time that the notice of listing was sent out. In the context of migration judicial review applications overall within this Court, some of which have taken between five and seven years to be docketed to a Judge and to be listed for final hearing, this Judicial Review Application was listed within a period of eight months of it actually having been filed. So again, relatively quickly.
5. In considering whether to adjourn the matter, the Court has regard to the objects contained in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Act 2021 (Cth), particularly in s 190, which sets out the overarching purpose of the civil practice and procedure provisions for the Court, and which requires the Court to facilitate the just resolution of disputes as quickly, inexpensively and efficiently as possible, and also the just determination of proceedings before the Court, and the efficient disposal of the Court's overall caseload, amongst other things.
6. In BKT17 v the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2023] FCA 384 ("BKT17") at [30] per Feutrill J the Federal Court observed that:

...[E]fficiency is intended to serve the administration of justice and must not come at the cost of ensuring a fair hearing.

1. And in BKT17 at [31] per Feutrill J the Federal Court observed that:

...[T]he primary judge's reasons record that a registrar of the Circuit Court made orders providing the appellants with an opportunity to file an amended application, affidavit evidence and submissions, but no such documents were filed. The reasons do not indicate to what extent, if at all, these orders were made after an explanation of the process had been provided to the appellants or if the orders were made administratively without explanation. However, I make the observation that orders that make provision for amending applications and affidavits where a party is a litigant in person and for whom English is not his or her first language, may not remove the disadvantage of self-representation if no explanation of the process is provided to that litigant in his or her own language before the time for compliance with such orders expires, or an oral hearing takes place.

1. In BKT17 at [33] per Feutrill J the Federal Court further observed as follows:

The failure of the appellants to avail themselves of the opportunity to amend and file written submissions and affidavits taken together with the oral submissions they made were powerful indications that neither understood the nature of judicial review or what they were required to do to identify and particularise grounds of review in a form that would permit the primary judge to understand the true nature of the complaint that they made about the process of the Tribunal's review.

1. Ultimately, the Court retains a broad discretion in relation to whether it adjourns a hearing.[6]
2. The Court observes in this case there is no evidence that the Registrar's Order made on 20 November 2025 was ever translated or interpreted for the benefit of the applicant. That said, the Court notes that the applicant has said that he was taking steps to instruct lawyers to appear for him during the months following the delivery of the Tribunal Decision. The Court also notes, as it did earlier, that this is a Judicial Review Application which has been brought on quite quickly in the context of, or compared to, other judicial review applications of a similar type. The Court notes also that the Tribunal Decision is a relatively lengthy and complex one, running to 28 pages and 147 paragraphs, and is certainly of a type which might be daunting to a self-represented litigant.
3. The Court also observes that it is relevant that the parties were notified of the listing of this matter for hearing shortly prior to the December/January holiday season for a hearing almost immediately after the end of the December/January holiday season. And the proximity of both the Registrar's Order and the Court's notice of listing to that holiday season might, the Court infers, account, at least in part, for the suggestion that there was insufficient time for lawyers to prepare for any hearing.
4. It nevertheless remains the case that a party has no right to legal representation in judicial review migration proceedings in this Court.[7]
5. The Court notes that the applicant submits, and there does not seem to be any reason to doubt, that he made approaches to lawyers with a view to obtaining some assistance to run his case and the hearing in this Court. That approach appears to be consistent with the applicant's approach from the outset, where it appears that he did obtain some assistance in the preparation of the Judicial Review Application from Legal Aid WA's self-represented litigation service.
6. Those matters, and the fact that the applicant is self-represented and does not have a lawyer to represent him, are matters to be taken into consideration when exercising the discretion as to whether to grant an adjournment.[8] But notwithstanding that those are matters to be taken into consideration, it remains the case, as the Court has pointed out earlier, that there is no right to legal representation in judicial review migration proceedings in this Court.
7. The Court observes that the applicant has not assisted himself by not making an application in a proceeding supported by affidavit as suggested by the Court on 16 January 2026, but that again may be accounted for by the fact that he is presently not represented and does not have English as a first language. In considering whether to grant an adjournment the Court also notes that in determining or considering the just determination of the proceeding and the just resolution as quickly, inexpensively and efficiently as possible, that:

(a) it will within a relatively short period be possible to re-list this matter for directions, and a final hearing if the applicant has been unable to obtain a lawyer;

(b) it is possible to re-list the matter without disadvantaging other parties in the hearing list of the Court as presently constituted;

(c) given the lack of particularisation of the current grounds of the Judicial Review Application and the apparent length and possible complexity of the Tribunal Decision, the Court might be assisted by written submissions being filed by the applicant by a lawyer to explain the present, or any amended grounds, of the Judicial Review Application; and

(d) the Minister asserts no prejudice if there were a short adjournment, and certainly no prejudice that could not be cured by an award of costs.

1. In all the circumstances, and having regard to the broad scope of the discretion exercisable by the Court when considering whether to adjourn proceedings, and having considered and weighed the matters in respect of which the Court has made observations this afternoon, and bearing in mind the applicant's assertion also that at least one firm of lawyers would be prepared to act for him in the matter, the Court is prepared to grant a short adjournment of the final hearing of this matter.
2. The Court wishes to make it clear to the applicant that he does not have a right to legal representation in this Court, and that if he is unable to obtain legal representation during the period of the adjournment, that the Court will proceed to hear his case without him being legally represented. That is not unusual in this Court and probably well over half, if not three quarters, of the applicants who appear in migration judicial review proceedings are self-represented.
3. Given that the applicant did not make an application in a proceeding supported by affidavit at an earlier stage as suggested in correspondence or in an email from the Court on 16 January 2026, and that the application for an adjournment was made at the final hearing seemingly without any further notice to the Minster, the applicant must be liable for the Minister's costs thrown away of today.
4. The Court proposes to adjourn the matter to a directions hearing in approximately three weeks time. And if the applicant has not secured legal representation at that time, the Court will proceed to re-list the matter for final hearing, probably within four to six weeks of the date of the directions hearing.
5. So there will be orders in the following terms:

(a) the final hearing of the originating application be adjourned to a date to be fixed;

(b) the matter otherwise be adjourned to a directions hearing at 9.30am on 18 February 2026; and

(c) the applicant pay the first respondent's costs of today thrown away, to be assessed if not agreed.

I certify that the preceding twenty-six (26) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of Judge Lucev.

[2] "Tribunal Decision" and "Tribunal" respectively.

[6] Myers v Myers [1969] WAR 19 at [21] per Jackson J_; FEH18 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs_ [2021] FedCFamC2G 293 at [15] per Judge Given; MZZZL v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2014] FCCA 1309 at [9] and [10] per Judge Lucev.

[7] SZHTI v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2006] FCA 702 at [3]- [4] per Gyles J; SZQRU v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2012] FCA 1234 at [24] per Katzmann J; Runghsawmee v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2019] FCCA 2795 at [32]- [36] per Judge Lucev.

[8] MZZIV v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2013] FCA 1203 at [5] per Mortimer J; ADN15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] FCA 810 at [29] per Charlesworth J.