For the reasons expressed in the detailed preamble to my order of 17 November 2025, I dismissed Ms Paloma-Hernandez's application for review that day following her non-appearance at a Tribunal case event pursuant to section 99 of the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 (the Act).
On that occasion, I also made contingent directions to the effect that in the event Ms Paloma-Hernandez applied for reinstatement, that application for reinstatement would be listed for hearing and the parties were to be prepared to immediately proceed with the substantive proceedings in this matter if I decided to grant the application to reinstate the application.
Ms Paloma-Hernandez applied to reinstate the application pursuant to subsection 102(7) of the Act on 18 November 2025.
A hearing on the application for reinstatement was listed for today, 9 February 2026, with provision for the substantive hearing to also proceed today in the event that the application for reinstatement were granted.
If a party applies under subsection 102(7) of the Act, and the Tribunal considers it appropriate to reinstate the application, the Tribunal may reinstate the application and make such orders as appear to be appropriate in the circumstances. The Act therefore obliges me to be satisfied that it is appropriate to reinstate the application before taking that step.
In her written application for reinstatement, Ms Paloma-Hernandez raises five matters as grounds for reinstatement. These are:
Personal circumstances
Procedural fairness - Inconsistent treatment and evidence obtained without request
Representation and Procedural Fairness
Self-Representation and procedural Imbalance
Substantive Misrepresentation of Responsibility.
Of these matters, on the question of whether to reinstate an application for review dismissed for non-appearance at a Tribunal case event, I consider the personal circumstances of the applicant, particularly at and around the time of the non-appearance at the Tribunal case event, to be the most relevant and pertinent ground.
Ms Paloma-Hernandez has stated in her written request for reinstatement that she had notified the Registry that she could not attend the hearing scheduled for 17 November 2025 due to her father's urgent hospitalisation for cancer. She further stated that she had indicated that she was willing to provide corroborating medical evidence if required. Ms Paloma-Hernandez said that (as at 18 November, the date of her application for reinstatement) her father remained in intensive care, but she was limited to supplying the medical certificate she provided. Ms Paloma-Hernandez observed that I had dismissed her application on the basis that corroborating evidence had not been received prior to the hearing, despite her clear indication that she was willing to provide it and that she subsequently did so.
In relation to Ms Paloma Hernandes' last observation on this point, her observation is partly accurate, but for completeness and context I add that the Tribunal had requested the medical evidence she had offered on 14 November 2025 that day, but it was not provided in advance of the hearing on 17th November 2025, and the Tribunal had also communicated to Ms Paloma-Hernandez that the hearing would therefore proceed but she may press her request for an adjournment at the commencement of the hearing.
I refer to paragraph 8 of the preamble of my order to dismiss the application on 17 November 2025 to explain why I adopted that course rather than completing the review in the absence of the applicant, an alternative procedural course suggested initially by the Respondent in the circumstances of Ms Paloma-Hernandez' absence.
Ms Paloma-Hernandez has annexed a letter from the relevant hospital to her application for reinstatement. The letter, dated 18 November 2025, states that her father had been admitted to the hospital with a medical condition and remained an in-patient as at 18 November 2025. The letter stated that the admission to hospital had occurred on 11 November 2025. The letter is written by an Intensive Care Registrar, which corroborates Ms Paloma-Hernandez' statement that her father was in intensive care at this time. I accept that Ms Paloma-Hernandez' father had been admitted to intensive care on 11 November 2025 (a week before the Tribunal case event) and remained in intensive care at the time of the Tribunal case event on 17 November 2025.
Ms Paloma-Hernandez adopted an unusual approach to addressing her grounds for reinstatement at the hearing. Ultimately I understood that her position was that she is determined to commence judicial review proceedings and therefore does not wish to say anything further to the Tribunal in support of her application or case, and wishes to rely on the written grounds she had provided and not address them any further. While I was content to proceed to consider the application for reinstatement by reference to the grounds as expressed in writing, I explained to Ms Paloma-Hernandez that the process would usually involve her putting forward her case at the hearing and responding to my questions.
Ms Paloma-Hernandez was most reluctant to answer my questions regarding her grounds for reinstatement, but I raised them with her nonetheless. Ms Paloma-Hernandez ultimately refused to answer these questions, raising instead a range of matters regarding her dissatisfaction with the Tribunal's processes.
Essentially, the questions I wished to raise regarding the application for reinstatement related to two topics causing me initial hesitation in granting the reinstatement application. The Secretary did not oppose the reinstatement application.
I wished to explore the two matters over which I was hesitating in relation to the application by asking questions about the following two aspects of Ms Paloma-Hernandez' personal circumstances at and around the time of her non-appearance at the Tribunal case event:
I wished to understand why Ms Paloma-Hernandez had not contacted the Tribunal to request her hearing be rescheduled at the time of her father's admission to intensive care or more proximate to that time, and why she had delayed raising the matter with the Tribunal until the working day prior to the scheduled hearing; and
I wished to understand better why the admission of her father into intensive care a week earlier was impacting upon her personally in such a way that she could not attend the Tribunal case event at all on 17 November 2025.
Ms Paloma-Hernandez expressly refused to address these matters. I consider both questions are legitimate matters for enquiry having regard to the circumstances and chronology in which the non-appearance at the Tribunal case event had transpired on 17 November 2025. I consider it is appropriate for me to have some regard to the need to preserve and apply the Tribunal's resources towards progressing cases and to take reasonable steps to avoid the Respondent's resources being wasted. In this regard, an entire day had been set aside for the substantive hearing. I am mindful nonetheless that while questions of the Tribunal's and respondent's resources are relevant, they will always be subservient to the overall justice of the case, but I did consider I needed the identified concerns addressed. I appreciate that in some circumstances having an elderly parent in hospital will introduce commitments and stressors that will mean a person cannot effectively participate in other aspects of their lives, but in other circumstances a person is able to continue to attend to commitments even when a family member is hospitalised. I wished to understand specifically what the circumstances were and what the impact was on Ms Paloma-Hernandez on 17 November 2025, given her father had been admitted on 11 November 2025.
As these circumstances have not been addressed after Ms Paloma-Hernandez refused to respond to my questions, the hesitation in granting the application I had upon examining the written grounds and evidence provided in support of the application remain and have now solidified. I am not satisfied it is appropriate to reinstate the application where these matters have not been addressed or explained.
I turn to consider the other matters raised in Ms Paloma-Hernandez' written grounds for reinstatement. In relation to "procedural fairness, comparative fairness and evidence obtained without request", Ms Paloma-Hernandez takes issue with my decision to dismiss the proceedings for non-appearance at a Tribunal case event. I observe that a grievance in this regard can be resolved by seeking reinstatement in the process provided for by the Act, being the instant application. Ms Paloma-Hernandez points to case management events in the Tribunal in 2022 as examples where conferences were vacated without the need for corroborating evidence, and contrasts this to my own approach on 17 November 2025 where I did require corroborating evidence.
Accepting Ms Paloma-Hernandez' contentions as to the management of the proceedings in 2022 on their face, I acknowledge I have taken a different approach to that attributed to the conference process in the former Tribunal in 2022. I have taken into account those different approaches and Ms Paloma-Hernandez' perception as to inconsistency, but these matters do not satisfy me that it is appropriate to reinstate the application.
Ms Paloma-Hernandez takes issue with the Secretary's choices as to representation in these proceedings in a ground described as "Representation and Procedural Fairness." I do not consider the Secretary's choices about representation in these proceedings is material to the reinstatement application.
Ms Paloma-Hernandez also raises a grievance regarding an interlocutory decision I made on 3 October 2025[1] in relation to identifying which administrative decisions the Tribunal had jurisdiction to review. That decision followed an interlocutory hearing convened for that purpose, and I had concluded that many of the decisions aggrieving Ms Paloma-Hernandez had not been the subject of a 'reconsideration decision' under the Higher Education Support Act 2003, and as such I did not have jurisdiction to review them. In particular, Ms Paloma Hernandez points to her perception of imbalance between herself as an unrepresented litigant and the Secretary being represented by lawyers. My reasons for reaching that interlocutory decision are expressed in my detailed statement of reasons for that decision. Ms Paloma-Hernandez' dissatisfaction with that outcome is completely understandable, but is not material to the application to reinstate the proceedings concerning the decision under review that remains within jurisdiction.
Similarly, Ms Paloma-Hernandez takes issue with a submission the respondent had made in relation to a possible outcome of the substantive proceedings, which Ms Paloma Hernandez suggests would be a misdirection. Other than recognising that refusing to reinstate the application will mean that the issue is not addressed on its merits, a proposition which I accept, the ground does not engage with matters material to an application for reinstatement following dismissal for non-appearance at a Tribunal case event.
I have taken into account all of the matters raised by Ms Paloma-Hernandez in her written grounds for reinstatement, but as mentioned I have focussed particularly on the personal circumstances impacting on her at the time she did not participate in the Tribunal case event. Ms Paloma-Hernandez' refusal to engage with two matters I wished to understand better in this regard has led me to conclude that I am not satisfied it is appropriate to reinstate the application.
[2]
The application to reinstate the application is refused.
[3]
[1] Paloma-Hernandez and Secretary, Department of Education [2025] ARTA 2019
Legislation Cited (3)
Appeals Tribunal Act 1975
Review Tribunal Act 2024
Education Support Act 2003
Cases Cited (1)
Paloma-Hernandez and Secretary, Department of Education [2026] ARTA 163 (9 February 2026)