Federal Court: Appellant made an unsuccessful judicial review application to FCCA, which delivered oral reasons for judgement, but those reasons were not interpreted to Appellant. Appellant appealed to FCA just before the statutory deadline, but FCCA's reasons were only published more than a month after the appeal was filed. Minister argued to the FCA that "there was no denial of procedural fairness ... because the appellant in fact filed a notice of appeal on time, and did not seek to amend it once he did receive a copy of the [FCCA's] reasons". The content of the contemporaneous reasons were not known to the FCA nor the Minister or the Appellant. Did FCCA deny Appellant procedural fairness? If so, what remedy should the Appellant be given?
The questions to the Federal Court (FCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Did the FCCA deny the Appellant procedural fairness?
Question 2: If the FCCA denied the Appellant procedural fairness, what remedy should the Appellant be given?
The FCA answered those questions as follows: