What happens if Minister breaches privacy laws?
Federal Court (Full Court): 'There is no requirement ... in the Migration Act imposed on the Minister to comply with State (or Commonwealth) privacy laws in the obtaining of information' which can then be used by the Minister when making a decision on whether to cancel a visa under s 501(2)
“[Agent] failed to properly supervise [employee]”
AAT: "[The agent] failed to properly supervise her [employee] and failed to put in place systems to protect clients from repeated wrongdoing by the Company’s employee".
AAT: sanctioned RMA had no backup; how to determine “excessive fees”
The consequences of not keeping a backup of electronic files could be devastating. In this decision, the AAT affirmed an OMARA decision and found as follows: "it is clearly not acceptable practice for any migration agent to keep files and records in such a manner as to put them at risk of being totally lost or rendered inaccessible as a result of a single, simple laptop failure. It is negligent in the extreme not to have backup arrangements in place".
Did s 500(6H) preclude answers given to questions put by the AAT?
Federal Court. Did s 500(6H) "preclude the Tribunal from considering information which is not presented by, or on behalf of an applicant, including information that arises from cross-examination or answers given in response to questions put by the Tribunal"? Does s 500(6H) have the effect that oral evidence, which may be given in support of a review applicant’s case cannot "depar[t] in a substantive way from the content of the written statements"?
Power in s 501BA to be exercised within a reasonable time?
Federal Court. Must the power in s 501BA of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) be exercised within a reasonable period of time? May satisfaction of the preconditions to the exercise of the power in s 501BA arise by consideration of matters that have arisen after the s 501CA decision?
Section 128: is severity of risk a mandatory consideration?
Federal Court. Was the nature and severity of the risk to Australia’s security a consideration that the delegate was legally required to take into account in exercising the discretion in s 128 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth)?
Does self-representation impact upon content of procedural fairness?
Federal Court. Is the fact that an applicant is self-represented before the Tribunal a relevant circumstance which impacts the question of the fairness of the procedure adopted by the Tribunal?
OMARA: agent ‘failed to communicate with her clients’
OMARA: 'I have found that the Former Agent had ... taken on a large number of clients and accepted their money in advance but did little or no work to act on their instructions; repeatedly failed to communicate with her clients in a timely manner; ... repeatedly failed to ...
Are strangers and members of the public vulnerable members of the community?
Federal Court. Can it be said that the Tribunal's conclusions that the applicant's crimes against other road users, strangers and members of the public going about their daily lives were crimes against vulnerable members of the community for the purposes of para 8.1.1(1)(b)(ii) of Direction No. 90 were not obvious, with the result that procedural fairness required the Tribunal to put those conclusions to the applicant?
Lost Australian citizenship by becoming PNG citizen?
Federal Court. Generally speaking, a person does not lose Australian citizenship by becoming a citizen of another country. However, there are exceptions. For instance, in some circumstances, a person who once was an Australian citizen is not an Australian citizen under the Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth) if they became a citizen of PNG by reason of the PNG Constitution. In this particular decision, did the Applicant become a PNG citizen by reason of the PNG Constitution and therefore lose his Australian citizenship?