Case Law Updates

Can it be said that, whether an applicant is a genuine applicant for entry and stay as a student is reached by reason only of the particular criteria in cll 500.212(a), (b) and (c)? Do the words in cl 500.212(a) concern only with how long a visa applicant intends to stay in Australia? In assessing whether an applicant "is a genuine applicant for entry and stay as a student", must applicants satisfy each of cll 500.212(a), (b) and (c)? Are some of the factors in Direction No 69 also relevant to cl 500.212(c)? Did the group introduction process at the start of the Tribunal hearing amount to a denial of procedural fairness? Should a litigant be expected to put on an appeal before being entitled to settled reasons from the court below?

Federal Court. Are the words "before the Minister" in s 473DC(1)(a) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) confined to information that was before the Minister in an applicant's application? Or is information "before the Minister" so long as a delegate has "actual awareness" of the information, whether or not it formed part of the application?

Federal Court. Does the IAA need to "hold an interview merely because it was minded to reach a different credibility finding from a delegate"? Are the ratio of the FCAFC's decision in DPI17 and the High Court's decision in ABT17 "confined to an instance in which the delegate’s overturned finding had been overtly and significantly based on an express assessment by the delegate of the applicant’s demeanour"?

Federal Court. Is the phrase “extent of impediments if removed” under para 14(1)(e) is given meaning by para 14.5(1) of Direction 79? Is the “extent of impediments” if removed referred to in the chapeau to para 14.5 a mandatory consideration, by reason of para 14(1)(e)? In making a finding about the “extent of impediments”, was it mandatory to consider each of the matters in sub-paragraphs (a) to (c) of paragraph 14.5(1)? If the Tribunal made an error, should the materiality of the error be assessed as a balancing, as opposed to a binary, exercise?

Federal Court. AAT set refusal aside, finding Applicant met s 36(2)(aa). On remittal, in considering exercise of discretion under s 501(1), Minister "accepted" AAT had found s 36(2)(aa) was satisfied and "noted" Applicant's submission to Minister relating non-refoulement obligations. Can it be said that Minister's acceptance that the AAT had found that s 36(2)(aa) was met should not be viewed as acceptance by him of substratum of AAT's finding? Can it be said that the use by the Minister of term "note" should not be read as the Minister stating that he agreed with the substratum of the Applicant's submissions, with the consequence that the Minister failed to meaningfully assess the Applicant's submissions and thus failed to discharge his discretion? For the purposes of discretion under s 501(1), is Minister entitled to disagree with or adopt AAT's findings?

Federal Court. In determining under s 362B(1C)(a) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) whether it was "appropriate" to re-instate a Tribunal application dismissed for non-appearance at the hearing, were "the merits of the substantive application, and in circumstances where the application was dismissed for a failure to appear at a hearing, the explanation for it", relevant considerations?

Federal Court (Full Court). In the examination of facts on which a putative state of mind of an administrative decision-maker is founded, is a court limited to judicial review principles? Will that state of mind be vitiated if it is founded upon “findings or inferences of fact which were not supported by some probative material or could not be supported on logical grounds"? In BSE17, FCA held that a "no evidence" ground relating to administrative fact-finding in the course of the exercise of power (i.e. after the state of mind has been reached) cannot be made out even if a "skerrick" of evidence is available to support that fact-finding. In the formation of the state of mind, is a skerrick of evidence that is consistent with the fact-finding necessarily probative material? 

Federal Court. Will the Court only grant a stay of Tribunal proceedings when its supervisory jurisdiction is involved, and where there are shown to be “exceptional circumstances”?

Federal Court: In SZSSJ: personal details of SZSSJ were unintentionally disclosed on the DHA's website; DHA refused to disclose the full content of a KPMG report on the data breach, but referred SZSSJ to an ITOA with instructions to assume that information from him had been accessed by all persons from whom he feared persecution; HCA held that even if there was a denial of procedural fairness in not disclosing the full report, that was cured by the assumption. Was the AAT in this case obliged to make that assumption?

The provision of false information was irrelevant for the purposes of determining whether a passport was a bogus document under s 5(1) and thus whether a protection visa should be refused under s 91WA of the Migration Act 1958