Submission templates

High Court. Practitioner used written submissions deriving from a previous client as a template for submissions sent to the IAA concerning 2 other clients. As a ground of judicial review, must fraud affect a particular duty, function, or power of the IAA? If so, were they affected for either of those 2 other clients? Was the IAA's failure to exercise the power in s 473DC to get new information, namely new submissions, legally unreasonable?

Are the Model Litigant Principles actionable?

Federal Court (Full Court). Section 55ZF of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth) provides that the Attorney-General may issue "Legal Services Directions" that are to apply generally to Commonwealth legal work. Section 55ZG provides that some persons or bodies such as the Commonwealth "must comply with Legal Services Directions". Is a breach of one of those directions, the Model Litigant Principles, actionable?

Is s 494AB about jurisdiction? Or does it rather provide the Cth a defence?

High Court. Can it be said that s 494AB of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) does not take away the jurisdiction of any court to hear and determine proceedings of the kinds described in s 494AB(1), but rather provides the Commonwealth with a defence to those claims if they are made in a court other than the High Court? If so, could proceedings instituted in the High Court in relation to the matters identified in s 494AB(1) be remitted to another court for hearing and determination without s 494AB providing an answer or defence to the claim?

Did AAT’s opinion on matter A shield decision from its error on matter B?

Federal Court. Applicant's visa was cancelled under s 501(3A). Delegate refused to revoke cancellation under s 501CA(4). AAT: found it had jurisdiction to review delegate's decision; erroneously found revocation request had not been made by deadline; thus, found that neither AAT nor delegate had power to revoke; nonetheless found that, had it been made by deadline, it would have affirmed delegate's decision, based on its opinion that there was not "another reason" to revoke cancellation; set aside non-revocation decision; and remitted matter to Minister with a direction that the cancellation decision not be set aside. Was AAT's error not jurisdictional, given its opinion that there was not "another reason"?

Once a non-alien, always a non-alien?

High Court. Plaintiff was born in what is now Malta in 1945, as a British subject. He then entered Australia in 1948 and became a UK citizen in 1949, retaining the status of a British subject. He held an absorbed person visa since 1994, until that visa was cancelled. He was never naturalised Australian and his parents were not Australian citizens. Can it be said that, because the Plaintiff had the status of a British subject when he arrived in Australia, he could not then have been conceived of as an "alien", with the result that he thereby acquired the status of a non-alien and therefore that he remains outside the reach of s 51(xix) of the Constitution?

Direction 79: para 14.1 interpreted

Federal Court (Full Court). Does para 14.1(2) of Direction 79 require decision-makers to take account of non-refoulement obligations? If not, might those obligations be required to be considered nevertheless for other reasons, such as because an applicant has raised those obligations? Since the introduction of s 197C, is indefinitely holding a person in detention for no lawful purpose and not refouling the person a possible legal outcome? If so, is the last sentence of para 14.1(6) incorrect to the extent it suggests otherwise? Was AAT obliged by paragraph 14.1(2) to proceed on the basis that refoulement was not a possible outcome?

Combined effect of ss 359C, 360, 363 & 363A

Federal Court. Combined effect of ss 360(2)(c) and (3) is that an applicant is not entitled to appear before AAT if s 359 applies to the applicant. Subsection 359C(1) applies if a person is invited under s 359 to give information and does not do so within the deadline. Section 363A provides that AAT has no power to permit a person to do a thing if a provision states that the person is not entitled to do that thing, unless a provision "expressly provides otherwise". Does s 363 "expressly [provide] otherwise" by giving AAT the power to "take evidence on oath or affirmation" or to "summon a person to appear"?

Removal duty applies regardless of ITOA?

Federal Court. In deciding whether to affirm cancellation made under s 109, AAT said Department would conduct an ITOA before removing Appellant from Australia. Combined effect of ss 198 and 197C was that, if AAT affirmed Department's decision, Appellant should be removed as soon as reasonably practicable despite Australia's non-refoulement obligations. Did the removal duty have to be performed regardless of whether any ITOA process would occur?

s 5J(1) interpreted

Federal Court. Is a random act of criminal violence "persecution" for the purposes of s 5J(1) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth)? If not, but such random acts are committed for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group and those acts are tolerated by State authorities resulting in a systematic failure to apply the law to the perpetrators, can there be persecution for the purposes of s 5J(1)?

Citizenship revocation & statelessness

Federal Court. Can a failure to make an obvious inquiry amount to jurisdictional error in decisions to revoke citizenship under s 34 of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007? In assessing whether revocation would render Applicant stateless, was it legally unreasonable for Department to rely on information provided by the Ukrainian Vice Consul concerning the operation of the laws of her own country, as the Vice Consul was not a Ukrainian lawyer? Was Minister bound to engage in an “active intellectual process” in deciding whether to exercise his power under s 34(2)? We summarise answers to these and several other questions.

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