Case Law Updates

Federal Court. Is a breach of a domestic violence order, without more, 'family violence' within the meaning in Direction 110?

Federal Court. Is there a principle of constructive refoulement in Australian law?

Federal Court. A letter notifying of a visa refusal stated: "As this letter was sent by email, you are taken to have received it at the end of the day it was transmitted. You have appointed an authorised recipient and are taken to have received this letter at the end of the day it was transmitted to your authorised recipient." Is the letter defective, as there was no authorised recipient?

Federal Court (Full Court). Can it be said that "the national interest requires an emergency, a significant threat or other circumstances involving the nation as a whole" and that "[t]he expression ‘national’ also directs attention to the interests of Australia as a whole as distinct from local or regional interests within Australia"?

Federal Court (Full Court). Although the Applicant's case was “novel” in the sense that there was an absence of judicial consideration of PIC 4003(b), is this alone insufficient to justify departure from the rule that costs should follow the event?

Federal Court. The Applicant was an NZYQ-affected BVR holder. Was it "not necessarily irrational or illogical to consider the provisions of the Direction on the basis that cancellation of the applicant's Global Special Humanitarian visa would remove his entitlement to stay in Australia thereby requiring his removal, provided the Tribunal also separately and sufficiently brought to account the additional consideration relevant to the applicant, namely that, in all likelihood, he would remain in Australia under different visa arrangements"?

Federal Court. Was Principle 6 of clause 5.2 of Direction 110 "concerned with attributing some responsibility or blame to Australia for a non-citizen’s conduct"?

Federal Court. Can it be said that the existence of a protection finding, with the result that s 198 neither required nor authorised removal, did not render legally unreasonable the giving of heavy weight in the Applicant's favour to the extent of impediments to removal, particularly because of his statement "that he may request removal to Nepal in light of the other legal consequences of refusal of the visa"?

Federal Court. By stating that Direction 110 required some actions to be taken, did the Assistant Minister proceed on the basis that he was personally required to apply the Direction, thereby making a jurisdictional error?

Federal Court. Can it be said that "the Tribunal’s most scathing criticisms of the applicant’s lawyers’ conduct were quite unjustified"? Would a fair-minded observer "reasonably regard the Tribunal as having launched an unjustified attack on the applicant’s lawyers"? Did the Tribunal effectively take the role of a contradictor?