Case Law Updates

Federal Court: under the Medevac provisions, 2 doctors must assess ("either remotely or in person") a transitory person before they can be brought to Australia for medical treatment. The non-citizen argued that the review of medical records of itself constituted "remote assessment". The Minister argued that "remote assessment" must involve a consultation.

Federal Court: In SZTAL, the plurality of the HCA held that "the intent requirement in relation to significant harm will only be satisfied if the perpetrator has an “actual, subjective, intention” to cause pain or suffering and that “knowledge or foresight of a result is not to be equated with intent”". However, can it be said that "evidence of foresight of the risk of pain or suffering or humiliation may support an inference of intention and in some cases the degree of foresight may render the inference compelling"?

Federal Court. Is one reason why there may be no real prospect of removal becoming practicable that the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) itself imposes a statutory preclusion on the removal of the applicant? If so, did s 198(11) have the effect that removal of the applicant was only permitted to a regional processing country?

High Court (Full Court). Appellant was born in what is now Malta in 1945, as a British subject. He then entered Australia in 1948 and became a UK citizen in 1949, retaining the status of a British subject. He held an absorbed person visa since 1994, until that visa was cancelled. He was never naturalised Australian and his parents were not Australian citizens. Can it be said that, because the Appellant had the status of a British subject when he arrived in Australia, he could not then have been conceived of as an "alien", with the result that he thereby acquired the status of a non-alien and therefore that he remains outside the reach of s 51(xix) of the Constitution?

Federal Court. Was it "uncontroversial that people in immigration detention are subject to a much greater level of surveillance and monitoring than people in the community generally"? Would the complaint that the Tribunal took into account an irrelevant consideration have force "if the fact that the applicant’s ability to avoid drug use had not been “tested” was the Tribunal’s only basis for finding that he posed an elevated risk of reoffending"?

Federal Court (Full Court): Is the obiter dicta in MZZJO authority for the proposition that a decision-maker will necessarily make a jurisdictional error if, in assessing a protection visa application, he or she relies "solely or primarily on the absence of claims from an entry interview" whose purpose is not to assess the applicant's claim for protection?

Federal Court. Is an order requiring the disclosure of any record of the Minister’s locations not to be made lightly? Can it be said that, "where the Minister decides to personally exercise the power, with that decision must come the potential for the Minister’s obligations to be greater in terms of responding to procedural steps taken in pursuit of the individual’s right to seek judicial review"?

Federal Court: Judicial review Applicant was invited under s 501CA(3) to make representations seeking the revocation of the mandatory cancellation of his visa on character grounds under s 501(3A). Invitation attached a form which included health questions. Applicant gave details of health conditions and medications and invited Department to contact his doctor. Can it be said that, "by inviting the applicant to make representations in a particular form, the Minister was under a statutory obligation to consider the representations made" and that by "not obtaining and considering the medical information that the applicant intended to form part of his submissions, the Minister ... breached that statutory duty or denied the applicant procedural fairness"?

Federal Court: Tribunal can correct errors in its written statement of reasons in the General Division, but only if they are 'obvious', immaterial errors

Federal Court. Can it be said that "information about conditions in a specific country (usually called “country information”) may include information about an identified or reasonably identifiable individual" and therefore that country information may include "personal information" for the purposes of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth)?