Federal Court. Is there only one DFAT report which must be taken into account in order to comply with Direction No 84, given that the most recent report said that that it replaced the previous report?
Direction No 56 provided as follows (emphasis added):
… 3. Where the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has prepared a country information assessment expressly for protection status determination purposes, and that assessment is available to the decision maker, the decision maker must take into account that assessment, where relevant, in making their decision. The decision maker is not precluded from considering other relevant information about the country.
Direction No 84 provided as follows:
Where the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has prepared country information assessment expressly for protection status determination purposes, and that assessment is available to the decision maker, the decision maker must take into account that assessment, where relevant, in making their decision. The decision maker is not precluded from considering other relevant information about the country.
Some of the questions to the Federal Court (FCA) were as follows:
Question 1: "The terms of the relevant clause in Direction No 84 are slightly different to those in Direction No 56 in that in the latter the word “a” appeared before the words “country information assessment”". Is that slight difference of no consequence?
Question 2: Is there only one DFAT report which must be taken into account in order to comply with Direction No 84, given that the most recent report said that it replaced the previous report?
The FCA answered those questions as follows: