Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Eshetu

The Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs appealed to the Full Federal Court against a decision of a single judge of that court, which had set aside a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT). The RRT had affirmed the Minister's decision to refuse Mr. Eshetu a protection visa. The dispute concerned whether the RRT had failed to afford procedural fairness to Mr. Eshetu.

The primary legal issue before the Full Federal Court was whether the RRT, in its assessment of Mr. Eshetu's claims for a protection visa, had failed to provide procedural fairness by failing to notify him of adverse information that was to be used against him and by failing to give him an adequate opportunity to respond to that information. Specifically, the court considered whether the RRT's reliance on information from a country information report, which was not provided to Mr. Eshetu, constituted a breach of the rules of natural justice.

Gaudron and Gummow JJ held that the RRT had indeed failed to afford Mr. Eshetu procedural fairness. Their Honours reasoned that the RRT had relied on adverse information contained in a country information report that had not been disclosed to Mr. Eshetu. This failure meant that Mr. Eshetu was not given a reasonable opportunity to address the material that was detrimental to his case, thereby breaching the fundamental requirement of procedural fairness. The court affirmed the principle that a decision-maker must notify an applicant of adverse information and provide an opportunity to respond before making a decision that adversely affects the applicant's interests.

The appeal was dismissed, and the orders of the single judge were affirmed.