In a scathing judgement against a ministerial decision to deport New Zealander, Mas Eden, the Federal Court effectively accused Assistant Immigration Minister Michaelia Cash of being ‘oppressive and unreasonable’.

Justice John Logan accused the minister of using “a sledgehammer to crack a nut” in the ministers  ill-fated attempt to deport Iranian-born New Zealand citizen Mas Eden and ordered the government to release Mr Eden and pay legal costs, according to a report in The Australian.

In 2011, Mr Eden had pleaded guilty to the indecent assault of a passenger in the taxi he was driving in Brisbane two years earlier. A District Court judge then sentenced Mr Eden to 12 months’ jail — wholly suspended for two years — remarking that “actions can often be misinterpreted and I think this is probably a case like that”.

While Mr Eden committed no offence in the ensuing two years, and quit working as a taxi driver, the Australian Federal Police alerted the Immigration Department to his conviction in January last year.

In April this year, Senator Cash cancelled Mr Eden’s visa on character grounds, ordering that he be sent back to New Zealand. Immigration officers went to Mr Eden’s southeast Queensland home early one morning, detaining him in front of his wife and five-year-old son.

He was taken to Brisbane airport and flown to Perth, where he was held until last week when a Federal Court judge ordered that the minister’s decision be quashed.

Justice John Logan ruled the minister had given insufficient consideration to the nature of the offence — Senator Cash took the position that “sexually-based offence­s are viewed very seriously” — as well as Mr Eden’s low risk of reoffending and the contrib­ution he had since made to his family and community.

Justice Logan also noted the manner in which Mr Eden was detained — including the failure to provide him with a copy of the minister’s decision, and her reasons, until the following day — which he suggested some people may find “heinous”.

Mr Eden’s immigration lawyer, Nilesh Nandan, said his client was initially told “a lawyer couldn’t help him because his visa cancellation was signed by the minister personally” and spent 85 anxious days in detention.

While Mr Nandan expected the minister to appeal, he hoped the case would show “what happens when extraordinary discretionary power is unleashed.”