Federal Court. Was the Minister's choice of what factors to take into account for the purposes of assessing the national interest under s 501BA(2)(b) conditioned by legal reasonableness? In cancelling a visa under s 501BA, the Minister was bound to take into account the legal consequences of his decision, one of which was that the non-citizen would be prevented from being granted a visa under special return criterion 5001. Was the Minister required to expressly refer to that provision or was a finding that the non-citizen would lose "all future contact with his children" enough?
Some of the questions to the Federal Court (FCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Was the Minister's choice of what factors to take into account for the purposes of assessing the national interest under s 501BA(2)(b) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) conditioned by legal reasonableness?
Question 2: In cancelling a visa under s 501BA, the Minister was bound to take into account the legal consequences of his decision, one of which was that the non-citizen would be prevented from being granted a visa under special return criterion 5001. Was the Minister required to expressly refer to that provision or was a finding that the non-citizen would lose "all future contact with his children" enough?
The FCA answered those questions as follows: