Australian Immigration Daily News

Today the High Court, by majority, allowed an appeal from the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia concerning whether a decision of the Immigration Assessment Authority ("the IAA") was infected by apprehended bias. The majority held that the decision was infected by apprehended bias because the IAA considered material provided by the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection ("the Secretary") which was irrelevant to the review and prejudicial to the appellant. 

A majority of the High Court held that the provision of the extraneous material to the IAA gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias. The IAA was required to consider the review material provided by the Secretary, which included the extraneous material, and said that it had done so. A fair-minded lay observer might think that consideration of the extraneous material might lead the IAA to have a bias against the appellant, possibly by thinking, consciously or subconsciously, that the appellant was not a fit person to hold a visa or that he would be a danger to the community. This might lead the IAA to make a decision otherwise than on the merits of the appellant's application. The IAA's decision was therefore quashed and the matter remitted to a differently constituted IAA.

Source: HCA-CNY17-v-Minister-for-Immigration-and-Border-Protection--Anor.pdf