Administrative law – Procedural fairness – Migration – Refugees – Review by Refugee Review Tribunal and Migration Review Tribunal – Ministerial discretion – Migration Act 1958 (Cth) confers powers upon Minister to dispense with statutory requirements for visa if "in the public interest to do so" – Dispensing powers must be exercised personally and are non-compellable – Plaintiffs refused visas and unsuccessfully sought merits review of those refusals – Plaintiffs requested Minister to consider exercising and to exercise dispensing powers – Requests by three plaintiffs refused by departmental officers pursuant to guidelines issued by Minister not forwarded to Minister – Request by one plaintiff refused by Minister – Whether statutory provisions conferring dispensing powers apt to affect adversely the sufficient interest of a party seeking exercise of those powers – Whether statutory provisions conferring dispensing powers excluded any obligation of Minister to accord plaintiffs procedural fairness.
Words and phrases – "dispensing provision", "guidelines", "legitimate expectation", "procedural fairness", "public interest", "sufficient interest".
Migration Act 1958 (Cth) – ss 48B, 195A, 351, 417.
Judgment date
Case number
S10/2011
S43/2011
S49/2011
S51/2011
Before
French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Heydon, Crennan, Kiefel, Bell JJ
Catchwords