Federal Court. Are the formative years confined to the period of a person's life when they were a child?
Para 8.3(4)(a)(i) of Direction 99 provided:
8.3 The strength, nature and duration of ties to Australia
...
(4) Decision-makers must also consider the strength, nature and duration of any other ties that the non-citizen has to the Australian community. In doing so, decision-makers must have regard to:
a) the length of time the non-citizen has resided in the Australian community, noting that:
i. considerable weight should be given to the fact that a non-citizen has been ordinarily resident in Australia during and since their formative years, regardless of when their offending commenced and the level of that offending
Some of the questions to the Federal Court (FCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Does the natural and ordinary meaning of ‘formative’ include ‘giving form or shape; forming, shaping, fashioning; moulding’ or ‘relating to formation or development’?
Question 2: Are the formative years confined to the period of a person's life when they were a child?
Question 3: Did para 8.3(4)(a)(i) of Direction 99 require the Tribunal, where relevant, "to ascertain the period of a non-citizen’s formative years and to consider and give weight to ordinary residence in Australia during and since those formative years"?
Question 4: May greater "be given to the period of time a non-citizen has been ordinarily resident in Australia where that period includes all or a very significant portion of that person’s formative years"?
The FCA answered those questions as follows: