Case Law Updates

Federal Court (Full Court). Is the question of whether the appellant was denied procedural fairness because he was not reminded of the privilege against self-incrimination the same as the question of whether what occurred was “material”?

Federal Circuit Court: the 'error made by the Tribunal was that it stopped short of assessing whether it was “unlikely” that the grant of the visa would result in undue cost or prejudice. Its analysis was entirely focused on the possibility'

Federal Circuit Court: for the purposes of cancellation under s 116(1)(e), the risk to the good order of the Australian community included risk caused by actions of members of that community; those members needed not be reasonable nor identified

OMARA. Did the practitioner facilitate payments to a sponsor in exchange for a visa applicant’s employment and sponsorship? If so, did she act in contravention of ss 245AR and 245AS?

Federal Court: the applicant's last email address provided to the Minister for the purposes of receiving documents was the one provided by the AAT

Federal Court. Court ordered that Minister cease to detain the applicant at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation centre (MITA) due to the risk of covid-19 entering the MITA and then infecting the applicant. In practical terms, this means Minister will need to place applicant at a different detention centre.

Federal Court (Full Court). In assessing Direction 79, can it be said that, "where a matter is relevant to two or more mandatory relevant considerations, a decision-maker is not usually required to take the matter into account repetitiously"?

Sanctions involving findings that practitioners have facilitated the provision of unlawful immigration assistance have become more and more common. OMARA: "I am satisfied that the Agent’s administrative staff have provided immigration assistance within the meaning of section 276 of the Act and that such was done under the Agent’s direction".

Federal Court. Did the Tribunal need to form a view pursuant to PIC 4020(4)(b) about the likely period of separation before determining whether PIC 4020(1) should be waived?

DHA lodged complaint against RMA. To what extent should RMAs: obtain instructions directly from clients, instead of 3rd parties; undertake checks to verify the authenticity of documents; compare different signatures to confirm documents were signed by the same person? Should RMAs alert DHA or MARA to frauds? Can metadata be used to determine whether RMA misled MARA? If MARA asks for copies of "any" correspondence, does it mean only any "relevant" correspondence? If client asks for an RMA to call back later, does this constitute instructions?