Case Law Updates

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

Federal Court (Full Court): "Notwithstanding provisions in Pt 7AA of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth)", was the Immigration Assessment Authority "obliged by natural justice ... requirements to put in writing any matters which it considered to be adverse to a referral applicant and to invite the person to comment on those matters in writing"?

Federal Court. In circumstances where the applicant gave evidence that, at the time he received notice of a decision to cancel his visa under s 501(3A) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), he had been processed and released from prison, and waiting in a cell, does the onus of proof shift to the Minister to establish the fact that the applicant was serving a sentence of full time imprisonment when the cancellation decision was made? If the cancellation occurred on the day of the applicant's release, was s 501(3A)(b) necessarily not met?

Federal Court. Can it be said that, "once a view is taken that a witness has been untruthful in one respect, it can and often does affect, consciously or subconsciously, the assessment of the witness’s remaining evidence, whether that other evidence was given before or after the supposedly untruthful evidence"?

Federal Court. In relation to Direction 79, can it be said that "the requirement to ‘generally’ give greater weight to the primary considerations means that there must be some matter specific to the circumstances of the case for giving one of the other considerations greater weight than any of the primary considerations before that can occur"? If so, must the whole case under consideration must be out of the ordinary or unusual? Can it be said that "the precise circumstances which led to the issue of materiality not being in issue may be relevant to whether the Court can proceed on the basis that there is no issue as to materiality"?

Federal Court. Was the Minister's decision under s 501BA of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) "legally unreasonable in that he failed to consider (or deferred consideration of) the applicant’s protection claims, despite the applicant being unable to make a protection application by reason of being barred by operation of s 48A of the Act"?

Federal Court. In a balancing exercise involving s 501CA(4) and Direction No 79, although almost all factors went in favour of revoking the mandatory cancellation of the Applicant's visa, the balance ultimately tilted against revocation. Does the fact that almost all factors went in favour of revocation deny the materiality of any errors made by AAT? In other words, could it be said that the materiality test involved a balancing (not binary) exercise in that, had the error not been made, even more weight could have been placed in favour of the Applicant, which in turn could have tilted the balance in his favour?

Federal Court. In the context of s 501CA(4), was the Tribunal required to genuinely consider representations made by an applicant with respect to the issue of indefinite detention "arising in addition to, and separately of, the fact that indefinite detention needs to be considered as a standalone legal consequence of the decision"? Can it be said that "a logical conclusion to a finding of non-refoulement obligations being owed would be a consideration of whether indefinite detention would be a risk imposed on the applicant", despite s 197C?

Federal Court. A person fails the character test by reason of s 501(6)(ba)(i) if "Minister reasonably suspects that the person has been or is involved in conduct constituting ...  an offence under one or more of sections 233A to 234A". Can person fail the test for offences committed before ss 233A to 234A or s 501(6)(ba) were introduced? Can it be said that, although "the reasons for the decision under review are not to be construed minutely and finely with an eye keenly attuned to the perception of error", "a beneficial approach to the reasons does not demand that any ambiguity in them must be resolved in the Minister’s favour"? Was it legally unreasonable for Minister to find that Applicant represented unacceptable risk to the community and yet that he could grant him a visa under s 195A? Was BAL19 wrongly decided?

Federal Court: 'It may be accepted that departure from non-statutory Ministerial guidelines may give rise to action liable to be set aside on judicial review, for error of law, where at least a decision-maker, not bound to apply a policy, purports to apply it as a proper basis for disposing of the case in hand or misconstrues or misunderstands it, so that what is applied is not the policy but something else'