Ground 2
28 In the second ground of appeal the appellant contended that the Tribunal failed to invite the appellant to appear in accordance with s 425 of the Act, in summary because the purported invitation was vitiated by the appellant's severe mental impairment. Section 425(1) provides that the Tribunal must invite the applicant to appear before the Tribunal to give evidence and present arguments relating to the issues arising in relation to the decision under review. The appellant also submitted that s 425 must be read with s 427(1)(d) of the Act, which provides that the Tribunal may require the Secretary of the Migration Department to arrange for the making of any investigation, or any medical examination, that the Tribunal thinks necessary with respect to the review, and to give to the Tribunal a report of that investigation or examination. Accordingly, the appellant submitted (in summary) that:
The Tribunal was aware that the appellant suffered from schizophrenia.
A psychiatric assessment of the appellant produced to the Federal Magistrates Court stated that the appellant was unfit to give a coherent or adequately detailed account of her experiences and was unfit to give evidence and present arguments in support of her protection visa application.
The exercise by the Tribunal of its inquisitorial power under s 427(1)((d) would not have been futile, but rather could and would have assisted the Tribunal to provide a fair and just hearing.
In view of the severity of the appellant's condition it was not for the Tribunal itself to determine by way of satisfying itself through considering her responses to the initial questions it asked her that she was competent to give evidence.
In summary - the Tribunal constructively failed to exercise its jurisdiction when it failed to exercise its inquisitorial power under s 427(1)(d) of the Act.
29 Whether the Tribunal is required to engage in further inquiry in particular circumstances was considered by the High Court in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZIAI [2009] HCA 39. In that case the Court observed as follows:
25. Although decisions in the Federal Court concerned with a failure to make obvious inquiries have led to references to a "duty to inquire", that term is apt to direct consideration away from the question whether the decision which is under review is vitiated by jurisdictional error. The duty imposed upon the Tribunal by the Migration Act is a duty to review. It may be that a failure to make an obvious inquiry about a critical fact, the existence of which is easily ascertained, could, in some circumstances, supply a sufficient link to the outcome to constitute a failure to review. If so, such a failure could give rise to jurisdictional error by constructive failure to exercise jurisdiction. It may be that failure to make such an inquiry results in a decision being affected in some other way that manifests itself as jurisdictional error. It is not necessary to explore these questions of principle in this case. There are two reasons for that.
26. The first reason is that there was nothing on the record to indicate that any further inquiry by the Tribunal, directed to the authenticity of the certificates, could have yielded a useful result. There was nothing before the Federal Magistrates Court or the Federal Court to indicate what information might be elicited if the Tribunal were to undertake the inquiry which was said to be critical to the validity of its decision. The inquiry suggested was telephone contact with the persons whose mobile telephone numbers were shown on the certificates. But the question whether the certificates contained false statements as to authorship or otherwise would not be able to be determined by calls placed to those telephone numbers. If the respondents to the calls admitted to the Tribunal or its officers that the certificates contained false statements, then the grounds for a decision adverse to SZIAI would have been strengthened. If the respondents said that the contents were true, it would have added nothing to the statements effectively conveyed by the certificates themselves. The second reason is that the response made by SZIAI's solicitors to the Tribunal's letter of 14 January 2008 itself indicated the futility of further inquiry. There was nothing that SZIAI or his solicitors were able to add, beyond a bare denial of what appeared in the National Ameer's letter. For these reasons there is no factual basis for the conclusion that the failure to inquire constituted a failure to undertake the statutory duty of review or that it was otherwise so unreasonable as to support a finding that the Tribunal's decision was infected by jurisdictional error.
(Emphasis added.)
30 In Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZGUR (2011) 241 CLR 594 Gummow J referred specifically to observations of the Court in SZIAI in finding that, in the circumstances of SZGUR, no obligation existed in the Tribunal to obtain a medical report (at [87]).
31 This Court has also considered the interaction of s 425 and s 427(1)(d). In Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZNVW (2010) 183 FCR 575, Keane CJ observed:
20 In my respectful opinion, s 425 of the Act did not require the Tribunal to press the respondent to call further evidence of his psychological problems or to expand his arguments relating to the ramifications of his problems for any aspect of the case he sought to present. Nothing in this Court's decision in SCAR supports the contrary view, and in the recent decision of Gilmour J in SZMSA v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2010] FCA 345, especially at [20]-[25], the contention that an applicant's psychological difficulties were such as to deprive him of the "meaningful opportunity" required by s 425 of the Act was rejected, correctly in my respectful opinion, on the footing that the applicant's condition was not shown to be such as to deny him the capacity to give an account of his experiences, to present argument in support of his claims, to understand and to respond to questions put to him.
…
22 None of these provisions of the Act affords support for the view that the Tribunal is duty-bound to press an applicant to call further evidence on an issue or to seek an adjournment of the hearing to enable him to do so, or to seek out such evidence itself. In those cases where the applicant is not disabled by his psychological deficits from giving evidence and presenting arguments, the hearing required by s 425 of the Act is not nullified by a mere failure by an applicant to present his case in the best possible light.
32 In this case it is clear that the Tribunal was aware at the time of the hearing that the appellant suffered from schizophrenia. At [56] of the reasons for decision the Tribunal observed:
Given the applicant's medical condition, the Tribunal was concerned to establish that she was capable of giving evidence. The medical evidence supplied to the Tribunal indicated that she was no longer in need of the crisis support the Auburn Mental Health Crisis Team had been giving her and that her condition had stabilized or was stabilizing through access she was getting to a regular supply of medication at recommended dosage levels. The Tribunal satisfied itself through considering her responses to the initial questions it asked her that she was competent to give evidence.
33 However, although the appellant contends that further inquiry by the Tribunal pursuant to s 427(1)(d) would have assisted the Tribunal to provide a fair and just hearing, it is unclear how further inquiry would have assisted the Tribunal. The Tribunal clearly took into account the mental state of the appellant in giving evidence and appearing at the Tribunal hearing and formed its own view as the ability of the appellant to do both.
34 Further, in referring to the psychiatric assessment of Dr Wu produced to the Federal Magistrates Court, it appears that the appellant seeks to invoke comments of Keane CJ in SZNVW where, in the context of that case, his Honour observed:
The further evidence subsequently adduced before the magistrate was not apt to, and was not found to, demonstrate an unfitness to "give evidence and present arguments" at the hearing. (at [37])
35 His Honour at [43] recognised that the Tribunal did not have the benefit of the medical opinion of Dr Wu adduced subsequent to the Tribunal hearing, namely that while the appellant was able to deal with simple, straightforward questions directed to matters in the present, she had real difficulty in dealing with questions that required her to recount her traumatic past experiences. His Honour noted Dr Wu's opinion that this inhibited the appellant from giving an effective account of those experiences. However after considering relevant authorities, his Honour continued at [48]:
In the present case the Tribunal knew that the applicant was mentally ill. Indeed, the hearing record of the Tribunal hearing on 3 November 2010 says that, with an asterisk (CB 93). The Tribunal already had available to it medical evidence which, coupled with the Tribunal's own questioning of the applicant, enabled it to form a view that the applicant, notwithstanding her schizophrenia, was capable of giving evidence. The Tribunal was not obliged to obtain a further opinion. In addition, I accept from the transcript of the second hearing that, while the applicant suffered apparent distress and confusion at several points, and while she was probably not able to give as effective an account of her experiences as a mentally able person could have given, the applicant was not unable to give evidence, present arguments and answer questions before the Tribunal at the time of the second hearing (see Minister for Immigration v SZNCR [2011] FCA 369 per Tracey J at [30]-[34]; Minister for Immigration v SZNVW [2010] FCAFC 41; (2010) 183 FCR 575).
36 It is important that the Courts be alert to circumstances where a litigant suffers from a mental illness and to whether that litigant is provided with a fair hearing. However in this case the reasoning of the Federal Magistrate is, with respect, sound. I am not satisfied that the Tribunal was duty-bound to conduct additional investigation into the mental health of the appellant pursuant to s 427(1)(d) of the Act. The Tribunal was already on notice that the appellant suffered from schizophrenia and took this into account in its dealings with the appellant. Nonetheless, the Tribunal was satisfied that the appellant was capable of giving evidence and presenting her case at a hearing before it. I am not satisfied that the Tribunal constructively failed to exercise its jurisdiction under s 425 when it did not exercise its inquisitorial power under s 427(1)(d) of the Act.
37 Finally, to the extent that the appellant contends that she was unfit to attend the hearing before the Tribunal - a point not specifically pleaded by the appellant but suggested by the appellant's submissions - the decision of Branson J in NAMJ v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs [2003] FCA 983 is of particular relevance. In that case her Honour held that, in the context of a claim that the Tribunal had failed to issue an invitation in accordance with s 425, it was for the appellant to establish that he or she was unfit to attend the hearing. Her Honour also found that the Court should accord weight to the view of the Tribunal in this respect.
38 In NAMJ, the Court found that the Tribunal was satisfied that the applicant knew the purpose of the hearing and had been able to give a comprehensive and lucid account of his claims (at [68]). This is also clearly the case in relation to the Tribunal hearing and decision the subject of this appeal.
39 In my view ground 2 is not substantiated.