Federal Court. When a single judge of the FCA disagrees with previous decisions of single judges of the FCA, is the question whether those previous decisions should be followed out of comity, rather than whether they are "plainly wrong"? Is a translation provided to the IAA, but not to a delegate, of a document that was before the delegate "new information" for the purpose of s 473DC of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth)?
Some of the questions to the Federal Court (FCA) were as follows:
Question 1: When a single judge of the FCA disagrees with previous decisions of single judges of the FCA, is the question whether those previous decisions should be followed out of comity, rather than whether they are "plainly wrong"?
Question 2: In ABJ17, the FCA held that a translation provided to the Immigration Assessment Authority (IAA), but not to a delegate, of a document that was before the delegate was not new information for the purpose of s 473DC of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth). ABJ17 was followed in DFS16. In BVC20, the FCA disagreed with the decisions in ABJ17 and DFS16. Was BVC20 correctly in calling ABJ17 and DFS16 into question?
Question 3: Would the IAA "have authority to consider the photographs [provided to it by the Appellant] if they did not contain “new information” but were also not included in the “review material” provided by the Secretary, even if the requirements in ss 473DD (pertaining to when the IAA can consider new information) were satisfied"?
Question 4: Can it be said that, "where an impugned finding is but one of a number of findings that independently may have led to the IAA’s ultimate conclusion, jurisdictional error will generally not be made out"?
Question 5: Can it be said that, "where a decision-maker relies on intermingled findings or matters in coming to an ultimate conclusion and there is no proper basis for one of the findings, jurisdictional error may result"?
The FCA answered those questions as follows: