Marku and Secretary, Department of Social Services (Social services second review)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (the Tribunal) considered an application for review by Marku against a decision of the Secretary, Department of Social Services. The central dispute concerned the applicants' identities, with the Department raising concerns that the decisions under review may have been obtained by fraud. The applicants sought to have the Tribunal proceed with the review without first determining the issue of their identities.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether it possessed the power to impugn the identities of the applicants, or if it was bound to accept their stated identities. This question was framed by the Tribunal as whether decisions obtained by fraud could be considered valid decisions made in the true exercise of power, and whether the issue of identity was dispositive of the proceedings. The Tribunal also considered the risk of fragmentation of proceedings if it were to decide the identity issue separately from the substantive review.

The Tribunal determined that deciding the issue of identity as a preliminary matter carried a significant risk of fragmenting the proceedings, which would be undesirable, costly, and inconvenient. Consequently, the Tribunal declined to decide the preliminary application concerning the applicants' identities at that stage. Instead, the Tribunal ordered that the application for review would be listed for a further directions hearing once all evidence from both parties was before it.