Case Law Updates

Federal Court. Is it "appropriate to conclude from the text of s 501G(1), considered in context, that the purpose of the requirement expressed in s 501G(1) for a notice to be given is to be protective of the interests of the person affected by the relevant decision beyond requiring notification"? Do s 500(6A)-(6L) require the Minister to explain the consequences of those provisions?

High Court. Does functus officio address the capacity, or authority, to adjudicate a matter, whereas estoppel addresses the capacity of the litigants to litigate a matter?

Federal Court (Full Court). Does the High Court's decision in Plaintiff M1 detract from the proposition that certain matters in Direction 90 were mandatory considerations which had to be considered even if no representations were made about them, lest the decision-maker make a jurisdictional error? Does the assessment of the materiality of an error made under s 501CA(4) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) involve a balancing, instead of binary, exercise?

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)?

Federal Court: this decision provides a useful summary of previous court decisions concerning apprehension of bias and the Immigration Assessment Authority

Federal Court: It is often said that jurisdictional errors made by an original decision-maker are always irrelevant to a merits review application, given that the Tribunal will make a decision de novo. However, that is not always the case, as this decision illustrates.

Federal Court. Was the letter incomplete or unclear in that "it did not explain that the appellant was taken to have received it at the end of the day it was transmitted to his authorised recipient"? Does failure to comply with any element of s 66(2) of the Act mean that there has been no notification of the decision and time had not yet commenced to run?

Federal Court (Full Court). Does it follow from the High Court's decision in Plaintiff M1 that there is "an important distinction between considering (in the sense of adverting to and understanding) the representations made by an applicant seeking the revocation of a visa cancellation under s 501CA(4) (on the one hand) and considering the same representations, in the sense of evaluating their significance in the course of making the decision (on the other hand)"?

Federal Circuit Court: 'The Minister argued that the consequence of that was that the Tribunal did not need to refer to every factor mentioned in Direction No. 53. However, that is not what is meant by saying that the Direction is not a checklist'

Federal Court. In what circumstances can courts admit evidence adduced on judicial review? If the Tribunal is exercising the merits review jurisdiction conferred on it by s 500(1)(ba) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) in respect of a decision under s 501CA(4) made by a delegate of the Minister, does s 43 of the AAT Act invest for that purpose the Tribunal with all of the powers, discretions and statutory obligations of the delegate?