austlii:cth/FedCFamC2G/2025/734
General information, not legal advice.
FedCFamC2G
2025-05-23
Mr P
Original judgment source is linked above.
FEDERAL CIRCUIT AND FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA (DIVISION 2)
Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court's records.
Note: The Court may vary or set aside a judgment or order to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 17.05(2)(g) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) (General Federal Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 17.05 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) (General Federal Law) Rules 2021 (Cth).
11 October 2022. 10. On 11 October 2022, the applicant and his representative appeared before the Tribunal to give evidence and present arguments. 11. On 13 October 2022, the Tribunal affirmed the delegate's decision not to grant the applicant a student visa.
(a) Certificate IV in Training and Assessment at Ambition Training Institute from July 2019 to March 2020;
(b) Graduate Diploma of Management (Learning) at Institution of Safety Management Professionals of Australia from May 2020 to June 2021;
(c) Diploma of Quality Auditing at Institution of Safety Management Professionals of Australia from June 2021 to October 2021; and
(d) Diploma of Business at Victorian College of Vocational Excellence from November 2021 to May 2022.
The Tribunal finds that the significant gap in the applicant's studies occurred from March 2014 to June 2019, following which he commenced studying a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment course. The Tribunal has carefully considered the medical evidence provided in support of the applicant's behaviour since 2018, when his father experience heart related issues, and accepts that the applicant has a strong attachment and anxiety concerning the welfare of his parents in Bangladesh, however, the disjointed stream of study options appears to be more about access to the low cost convenience of courses than a genuine desire to pursue a career orientated study stream. The Tribunal has regard to the Psychological Assessment and Psychological Report submitted on 10 August 2022 and accepts the applicant's diagnoses contained therein. The Tribunal also accepts that the applicant's personal issues and medical condition affected his ability to study. However, the applicant did not seek to defer his studies and has completed courses in the most recent period when his parents were post the onset of their major medical episodes.
Judicial review application and procedural orders
The Administrative Appels Tribunal (AAT) has made a decision so unreasonable that no reasonable person would have made it.
The AAT made a decision so unreasonable that no reasonable person would have made it by failing to give genuine and realistic consideration of the Applicant's claims of his circumstances in paragraph 34 of the decision.
(a) It contained two factual errors, namely, it said that the applicant "did not seek to defer his studies", and that the applicant "has completed courses in the most recent period when his parents were post the onset of their major medical episodes".
(b) It failed to appreciate that the Psychological Report was led by the applicant to prove that mental health issues impacted the applicant in the past, but they would not impact his future academic performance.
[27] In Wednesbury Corporation, Lord Greene MR observed that the word "unreasonable" in administrative law was used to encompass failure by a decision-maker to obey rules requiring proper application of the law, consideration of mandatory relevant matters and exclusion from consideration of irrelevant matters:
"If he does not obey those rules, he may truly be said, and often is said, to be acting 'unreasonably'."
That kind of unreasonableness may be taken to encompass unreasonableness from which an undisclosed underlying error may be inferred.
[28] Beyond unreasonableness expressive of particular error however, it is possible to say, as Lord Greene MR said, that although a decision-maker has kept within the four corners of the matters it ought to consider "they have nevertheless come to a conclusion so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it." In such a case the court may interfere. That limiting case can be derived from the framework of rationality imposed by the statute. As explained by Lord Greene MR, it reflects a limitation imputed to the legislature on the basis of which courts can say that parliament never intended to authorise that kind of decision. After all the requirements of administrative justice have been met in the process and reasoning leading to the point of decision in the exercise of a discretion, there is generally an area of decisional freedom. Within that area reasonable minds may reach different conclusions about the correct or preferable decision. However, the freedom thus left by the statute cannot be construed as attracting a legislative sanction to be arbitrary or capricious or to abandon common sense.
If probative evidence can give rise to different processes of reasoning and if logical or rational or reasonable minds might differ in respect of the conclusions to be drawn from that evidence, a decision cannot be said by a reviewing court to be illogical or irrational or unreasonable, simply because one conclusion has been preferred to another possible conclusion.
To reach a conclusion that an exercise of power is legally unreasonable involves a level of confidence on judicial review that either the outcome of the exercise of power, or the reasoning that led to that outcome (see Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Singh [2014] FCAFC 1; (2014) 231 FCR 437 at [44]) so departed from the underlying premises of the exercise of public power that it has resulted in the power entirely miscarrying, in effect being an abuse of power. See generally Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v SZVFW [2018] HCA 30; (2018) 264 CLR 541 (SZVFW) at [80] (Nettle and Gordon JJ). In this context, the term "abuse" of power refers to an exercise of power other than for the purposes and within the limits conferred.
The task is not definitional but one of characterisation: the decision is to be evaluated, and a conclusion reached as to whether it has the character of being unreasonable, insufficiently lacking rational a foundation, or an evident or intelligible justification, or in being plainly unjust arbitrary capricious or lacking common sense having regard to the terms, scope and purpose of the statutory source of the power, such that it cannot be said to be within the range of possible lawful outcomes as to the exercise of that power. The descriptions of a lack of quality used above are not exhaustive or definitional, they are explanations or explications of legal unreasonableness, of going beyond the source of power.
...not whether the Court thinks the decision is reasonable, or necessary for the purpose, or not, as the case may be; rather it is whether a decision-maker could reasonably come to the conclusion. Depending upon the nature of the decision, its attendant considerations and the statute in question, the Court may or may not have a degree of familiarity and confidence in assessing how a decision-maker ought to approach the matter.
The Tribunal has regard to the Psychological Assessment and Psychological Report submitted on 10 August 2022 and accepts the applicant's diagnoses contained therein. The Tribunal also accepts that the applicant's personal issues and medical condition affected his ability to study. However, the applicant did not seek to defer his studies and has completed courses in the most recent period when his parents were post the onset of their major medical episodes.
s 467 of the Act: Parker at [60]. Finally, as the First Respondent also correctly submitted, the type of student the applicant might be in the future was not relevant to the Tribunal's decision in any event. Rather, it was required to decide, under cl 500.212(a) of the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth), whether the applicant intended "genuinely to stay in Australia temporarily" as a student. 7. The applicant's second argument is rejected. 8. As to the argument more generally that the Tribunal failed to give "genuine and realistic consideration" to the applicant's circumstances in [34], namely, his psychological wellbeing, I also reject that argument. 9. In Plaintiff M1/2021 v Minister for Home Affairs (2022) 275 CLR 582 (Plaintiff M1/2021) at [26]-[27] per Kiefel CJ, Keane, Gordon and Steward JJ, with Gageler J agreeing, the High Court said (footnotes omitted): 1. Labels like "active intellectual process" and "proper, genuine and realistic consideration" must be understood in their proper context. These formulas have the danger of creating "a kind of general warrant, invoking language of indefinite and subjective application, in which the procedural and substantive merits of any [decision‑maker's] decision can be scrutinised". That is not the correct approach. As Mason J stated in Minister for Aboriginal Affairs v Peko-Wallsend Ltd, "[t]he limited role of a court reviewing the exercise of an administrative discretion must constantly be borne in mind". The court does not substitute its decision for that of an administrative decision-maker. 2. None of the preceding analysis detracts from, or is inconsistent with, established principle that, for example, if review of a decision‑maker's reasons discloses that the decision‑maker ignored, overlooked or misunderstood relevant facts or materials or a substantial and clearly articulated argument; misunderstood the applicable law; or misunderstood the case being made by the former visa holder, that may give rise to jurisdictional error. 10. I accept the first respondent's submission that the Tribunal did, in fact, consider the applicant's psychological wellbeing, and that its reasoning disclosed a proper evaluation of the applicant's evidence that was logical, rational and had a probative basis in the circumstances. I consider, for the reasons already given above as to the first and second of the applicant's arguments, the Tribunal did not ignore, overlook or misunderstand the claims of his circumstances in [34], regarding applicant's psychological wellbeing as raised in the Psychological Report. It gave that report proper, genuine and realistic consideration, in accordance with what is discussed by cases such as Plaintiff M1/2021. 11. For completeness, I deal with the Federal Court authority the applicant cited in support of his arguments during the hearing in this Court. The applicant submitted the decision of SZSFS was relevant to the determination of his case. However, I consider SZSFS to be distinguishable from the present case. 12. In SZSFS the Tribunal was prepared to accept a diagnosis made by a psychologist in a report, who found the applicant suffered from a mental health condition, a symptom of which was "severe lack of concentration and memory", but was not prepared to accept the report as independent corroborative evidence that the applicant had a severe lack of concentration and memory. Justice Login found the Tribunal's decision in that case was irrational, illogical and legally unreasonable: SZFSF at [40]-[41]. 13. The Tribunal's finding here was very different. The Tribunal in the present case accepted the diagnosis contained in the Psychological Report and found (favourably to the applicant) that, based on this report, his "personal issues and medical condition affected his ability to study". It did not discount the opinion on the issue of the applicant's credibility, as occurred in SZSFS. It found the Psychological Report supported the conclusion for which it was led in the Tribunal by the applicant. 14. In conclusion, applying Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Li and SZMDS outlined above, the applicant has failed to establish that the Tribunal's decision to refuse to grant the applicant a student visa was a decision, "so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it". Further, I do not consider the Tribunal's decision was unreasonable, insufficiently lacking a rational a foundation, or an evident or intelligible justification. Nor was it a decision that was plainly unjust, arbitrary, an abuse of power, capricious or lacking common sense in the context of its statutory setting: Lieu and Stretton. 15. For the reasons outlined above, the applicant has not established that the Tribunal's decision is vitiated by jurisdictional error. 16. The application is dismissed.
I certify that the preceding eighty-two (82) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of Judge Cleary.
Hossain
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2025] FedCFamC2G 734
(2010) 240 CLR 611
(2013) 249 CLR 332
(1996) 185 CLR 259
(2023) 297 FCR 162
(2022) 275 CLR 582
(2016) 247 FCR 500
(2014) 231 FCR 437
(2018) 264 CLR 541