The deportation of a convicted wife killer has been overturned because it could not be proven Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton spent more than 11 minutes considering the case.

Key points: The material relating to Frederick Chetcuti's visa status was 130 pages long

The material relating to Frederick Chetcuti's visa status was 130 pages long Mr Dutton was legally required to give "proper, genuine and realistic consideration" to it

Mr Dutton was legally required to give "proper, genuine and realistic consideration" to it However, the judgment said it was likely Mr Dutton looked at it for "no longer than 11 minutes"

Frederick Chetcuti, 73, was convicted of murdering his wife in 1993 and sentenced to 24 years' jail.

While behind bars, he was also convicted of assaulting his cellmate and sentenced to another two years in prison, to be served at the same time as his murder sentence.

Chetcuti was born in Malta, and moved to Australia in 1948 when he was two years old.

As his time in jail neared an end in March 2017, Mr Dutton moved to cancel his visa on the grounds he was of bad character in a bid to have him deported.

That decision was appealed to the Federal Court, and the Minister agreed to quash the visa cancellation in the days leading up to the hearing.

But Mr Dutton tried a second time to cancel Chetcuti's visa that same day — which the Federal Court has now decided to overturn on a technicality.

The court heard a brief was "placed on the Minister's desk at about 9:16am on 14 August, 2017", the day the Federal Court would formalise Mr Dutton's consent to having his original decision quashed.

The paperwork was signed off by a judge at 10:14am that day, and the Minister cancelled the visa a second time at 10:25am — 11 minutes later.

Chetcuti's lawyers argued that meant Mr Dutton had not taken the appropriate amount of time to consider the 130 pages of information presented to him, because he was not allowed to make a new decision until the court signed off on dumping his original ruling.

Lawyers for the Minister argued the brief was put on his desk an hour earlier, and suggested he could have begun his reading when that happened.

"The Minister contends that the natural meaning of the words "is on the Minister's desk for consideration" is that he had already commenced considering the material, or would do so shortly," Justices Bernard Murphy and Darryl Rangiah said in their judgment delivered on Tuesday.

"The first of these interpretations cannot be accepted — the words used suggest that the material was left for the Minister to consider when the Minister was available, not that he had already commenced considering it.

"The second interpretation — that the Minister would commence considering the material shortly — cannot be accepted because the words used give no indication of whether the Minister would, for example, begin his consideration within a few minutes or in an hour."

The court also said no evidence had been put forward by Mr Dutton's lawyers that he started reading the brief earlier, rather a suggestion he would have.

In a two-to-one decision, Justice Rangiah and Justice Murphy upheld Chetcuti's appeal and ordered that Mr Dutton's decision to cancel his visa on character grounds should be quashed.

The third judge, David O'Callaghan, dissented, saying he would dismiss the appeal.

Chetcuti's visa now cancelled a third time

The ABC understands Chetcuti's visa has been cancelled for a third time in the wake of Tuesday's decision, and he has been taken back into detention.

In June 2018, Mr Dutton was asked about the appeal on Sydney radio station 2GB. He declined to comment on the specifics because he was directly involved, but did offer his assessment of Chetcuti's character.

"He's a person that's committed a heinous crime and he doesn't deserve to be in our country, and as soon as I can deport him I will," he said.

With subsequent portfolio reshuffles, any decision to appeal the case would be made by now Immigration Minister David Coleman.

Mr Coleman's office would not comment on the case.

The Department of Home Affairs also refused to comment specifically on the Chetcuti judgment, but outlined the grounds in the Migration Act on which someone may have their visa cancelled.

"There are provisions … that allow the Minister to cancel a visa without notice if the Minister reasonably suspects that the person does not pass the character test and if the Minister is satisfied that the cancellation is in the national interest," a spokesman said.

"A person may not pass the character test on a number of grounds including, but not limited to, where they have a substantial criminal record.

"Non-citizens whose visas have been cancelled by the Minister can seek judicial review of this decision by the courts."

Chetcuti battered wife with rock

During his 1993 murder trial it was revealed Chetcuti had, with his teenaged son in the car, followed his wife, forced her off the road, kidnapped her, battered her with a rock and dumped her in the Parramatta River, weighing her down with rocks until she drowned.

The sentencing judge said Chetcuti had been seriously contemplating killing her for "at least a couple of weeks" and that "he had acted in wilful defiance of a Family Court order by approaching her, and he had killed her because she was seeking relief against him in the Family Court and he feared that he might lose some of his property".

Chetcuti was also sentenced to two more years in prison for assaulting his cellmate, after being asked to switch out the light at 3:00am.

In this latest case, he was appealing against a 2018 judgment by Federal Court Justice Steven Rares that upheld Mr Dutton's August 2017 decision to cancel his visa.

In his judgment, Justice Rares said: "I find there is an ongoing risk that Mr Chetcuti will reoffend."