Federal Court. Is the Tribunal bound to uncritically accept an expert's opinion? If not, is it nevertheless bound to do so if the expert's opinion was adduced before the Tribunal by a non-citizen and the Minister was a party who did not adduce any evidence to contradict that opinion?
Some of the questions to the Federal Court (FCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Does the fact that the Tribunal's reasons deal sequentially with the different considerations under Direction 79 indicate that it decided each factual issue in isolation from the others?
Question 2: Is the Tribunal bound to uncritically accept an expert's opinion?
Question 3: If the answer to Question 2 is 'no', does the answer change if the expert's opinion was adduced before the Tribunal by a non-citizen and the Minister was a party who did not adduce any evidence to contradict that opinion?
Question 4: If the Minister is a party in Tribunal proceedings where the non-citizen has adduced expert evidence, is the Minister required to adduce contrary evidence?
The FCA answered those questions as follows: