SINGH v Minister for Immigration

[2010] FMCA 1000

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA

SINGH v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & ANOR [2010] FMCA 1000

MIGRATION – Review of Migration Review Tribunal (“Tribunal”) decision – review application made out of time – Tribunal had no jurisdiction to review primary decision – Ministerial delegate’s decision record not signed – covering notification letter signed – existence of MRT-reviewable decision does not depend on validity of primary decision – decision validly notified – notification may be given in two documents – lack of signature on decision record had no practical consequences for applicant – Tribunal’s decision that it had no jurisdiction not affected by lack of signature on delegate’s decision record – paraphrase of criterion which is not satisfied is sufficient specification of reason for visa refusal if principal clause in which criterion is located is identified - any alleged non-compliance with requirement to specify reason for refusal did not deny applicant an effective or adequate opportunity to make an application for review.

Migration Act 1958, ss.65, 66, 338, 347, 474, 494B, 494C, 494D
Migration Regulations 1994, regs.2.16, 4.10, cls.572.223 & 573.223 of sch.2

Plaintiff S157/2002 v Commonwealth (2003) 211 CLR 476
Zubair v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (2004) 139 FCR 344
Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs v Ahmed (2005) 143 FCR 314
SZNZK v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship [2010] FCA 651
Collector of Customs (NSW) v Brian Lawlor Automotive Pty Ltd (1979) 41 FLR 338
SZGME v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship (2008) 168 FCR 487
Benissa v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship [2010] FMCA 657
Zhan v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous  Affairs (2003) 128 FCR 469
SZOFE v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship (2010) 185 FCR 129
Chan v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (2003) 134 FCR 308

Applicant: SURINDER SINGH

First Respondent: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & CITIZENSHIP

Second Respondent: MIGRATION REVIEW TRIBUNAL

File Number: SYG 1818 of 2010

Judgment of: Cameron FM

Hearing date: 16 November 2010

Date of Last Submission: 16 November 2010

Delivered at: Sydney

Delivered on: 17 December 2010

REPRESENTATION

Solicitors for the Applicant: Christopher Levingston & Associates

Counsel for the First Respondent: Mr D. Godwin

Solicitors for the Respondents: Australian Government Solicitor

ORDERS

1. The application be dismissed.

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES
COURT OF AUSTRALIA
AT SYDNEY

SYG 1818 of 2010

SURINDER SINGH

Applicant

And

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & CITIZENSHIP

First Respondent

MIGRATION REVIEW TRIBUNAL

Second Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Introduction

1. The applicant is a citizen of India. On 8 March 2010 he lodged an application for a Student (Temporary) (Class TU) subclass 572 visa. That application was refused by a delegate of the first respondent (“Minister”) on 7 April 2010. The applicant then sought review of that decision with the Migration Review Tribunal (“Tribunal”). However, the Tribunal found that the application had been lodged out of time and consequently concluded that it did not have jurisdiction. The applicant has applied to this Court for judicial review of the Tribunal’s decision.

2. In these judicial review proceedings the Court’s task is to determine whether the Tribunal’s decision is affected by jurisdictional error as that is the only basis upon which it can be set aside: s.474 Migration Act 1958 (“Act”); Plaintiff S157/2002 v Commonwealth (2003) 211 CLR 476.

3. For the reasons which follow, the application will be dismissed.

Legislation

1. Section 347 of the Act sets out the requirements for an application for review to the Tribunal. Relevantly in this case, s.347(1)(b) provides:

   347 Application for review by Migration Review Tribunal

   (1) An application for review of an MRT-reviewable decision must:

   (a) …

   (b) be given to the Tribunal within the prescribed period, being a period ending not later than:

   (i)      if the MRT-reviewable decision is covered by subsection 338(2), (3), (3A), (4) or (7A)—28 days after the notification of the decision; …

2. The decision to refuse the applicant’s application for a student visa was an MRT-reviewable decision: s.338(2).

3. For the purposes of s.347(1)(b), reg.4.10 of the Migration Regulations 1994 (“Regulations”) prescribes the periods within which applications for review can be lodged with the Tribunal. It relevantly provides:

   4.10 Time for lodgment of applications with Tribunal (Act, s 347)

   (1) For paragraph 347 (1) (b) of the Act, the period in which an application for review of an MRT-reviewable decision must be given to the Tribunal:

   (a) if the MRT-reviewable decision is mentioned in subsection 338 (2) or (7A) of the Act — starts when the applicant receives notice of the decision and ends at the end of 21 days after the day on which the notice is received;…

4. When the Minister grants or refuses to grant a visa, s.66(1) requires that he notify the applicant of the decision in the prescribed way. Regulation 2.16(3) prescribes that this must be by one of the methods specified in s.494B, which relevantly provides:

   494B         Methods by which Minister gives documents to a person

   …

   Dispatch by prepaid post or by other prepaid means

   (4) Another method consists of the Minister dating the document, and then dispatching it:

   (a) within 3 working days (in the place of dispatch) of the date of the document; and

   (b) by prepaid post or by other prepaid means; and

   (c) to:

   (i)the last address for service provided to the Minister by the recipient for the purposes of receiving documents; or

   (ii) the last residential or business address provided to the Minister by the recipient for the purposes of receiving documents;…

5. Section 66(2) provides for the content of the notification:

   66 Notification of decision

   …

   (2)    Notification of a decision to refuse an application for a  visa         must:

   (a)if the grant of the visa was refused because the     applicant did not satisfy a criterion for the visa—specify that criterion; and

   (b)if the grant of the visa was refused because a provision of this Act or the regulations prevented the grant of the visa—specify that provision; and

   (c)unless subsection (3) applies to the application—give written reasons (other than non‑disclosable information) why the criterion was not satisfied or the provision prevented the grant of the visa; and

   (d)if the applicant has a right to have the decision reviewed under Part 5 or 7 or section 500—state:

   (i)that the decision can be reviewed; and

   (ii)the time in which the application for review may be made; and

   (iii)who can apply for the review; and

   (iv) where the application for review can be made.

6. Section 494D(1) provides that if an applicant has appointed an authorised recipient to receive communications under the Act on his or her behalf, the Minister is to send notifications to that authorised recipient instead of to the applicant. If notification is given in this way it is taken to have been given to the applicant: s.494D(2).

7. Section 494C of the Act relevantly provides:

   494CWhen a person is taken to have received a document from the Minister

   …

   Dispatch by prepaid post or by other prepaid means

   (4) If the Minister gives a document to a person by the method in subsection 494B(4) (which involves dispatching the document by prepaid post or by other prepaid means), the person is taken to have received the document:

   (a) if the document was dispatched from a place in Australia to an address in Australia – 7 working days (in the place of that address) after the date of the document; …

Background

1. The Minister’s delegate refused the application on the basis that the applicant failed to satisfy cl.572.223 of sch.2 to the Regulations. Specifically, the delegate was not satisfied that the applicant was a genuine applicant for stay as a student as he had not demonstrated that he had access to funds declared in accordance with sch.5A of the Regulations.

2. On 12 May 2010 the applicant lodged an application for review with the Tribunal. However, on 19 July 2010 the Tribunal found that the application had been lodged out of time, noting in this connection that:

   a)the Tribunal received confirmation from the department’s mail and distribution service that the delegate’s decision had been sent on 8 April 2010 which, as prescribed by s.494B(4)(a), was within three working days of the notification letter of 7 April 2010;

   b)the notification letter was sent from a place in Australia to the applicant’s authorised recipient at an address in Australia. Therefore, the applicant was taken to have received the letter on 16 April 2010, being seven working days after the date of the notice;

   c)the applicant had 21 days from 16 April 2010 within which to lodge an application for review. That prescribed period ended on 7 May 2010;

   d)the application for review was not received by the Tribunal until 12 May 2010, after the prescribed period had expired; and

   e)the Tribunal considered the applicant’s submissions but found that it had had no discretion to accept an application lodged outside the prescribed timeframe and there was no provision for an extension of time in which to lodge an application for review.

3. Having made these findings, the Tribunal concluded that the application for review filed on 12 May 2010 was not a valid application and, accordingly, that it did not have jurisdiction in the matter.

Proceedings in this Court

1. The grounds of the amended application were pleaded as follows:

   1.The Second Respondent has fallen into jurisdictional error.

   Particulars

   (a)The second respondent determined that the Applicant’s application for review made on 12 May 2010 was not a valid application for review by reason of the combined effect of paragraph 347(1)(b) of the Migration Act 1958 and regulation 4.10 of the Migration Regulations 1994.

   (i)          The purported decision of the First Respondent’s servant was not a valid decision in accordance with the requirements of section 65 of the Migration Act 1958 in that the relevant decision record was not signed; there was no MRT-reviewable decision as there was no decision at all; in the alternative,

   (ii)     The Applicant was not properly notified of the first instance decision of the First Respondent’s servant in accordance with the requirements of subsection 66(2) of the Migration Act 1958 as the decision record was not signed.

   2.     The Second Respondent has fallen into jurisdictional error.

   Particulars

   (a)The second respondent determined that the Applicant’s application for review made on 12 May 2010 was not a valid application for review by reason of the combined effect of paragraph 347(1)(b) of the Migration Act 1958 and regulation 4.10 of the Migration Regulations 1994.

   (i)      The Applicant was not properly notified of the first instance decision of the First Respondent’s servant in accordance with the requirements of subsection 66(2) of the Migration Act 1958 in that the decision record did not specify the relevant criterion or criteria which the First Respondent’s servant determined the Applicant did not satisfy, with clarity and precision. Thus, the decision record was inadequate to specify the criterion for the purpose of paragraph 66(2)(a) of the Act.

Delegate’s decision not valid because decision record not signed

1. It was conceded by the applicant that the letter from the Minister’s department dated 7 April 2010 advising him that his visa application had been refused had been signed by the Minister’s delegate. However, it was submitted that as the attached decision record also dated 7 April 2010 had not been signed, what purported to be a notification of the delegate’s decision was in fact ineffective. It was contended that for a decision to be valid for the purposes of s.65 of the Act, it was necessary that the decision record be signed and that, in the absence of the signature, there was no prima facie evidence to suggest that the purported decision record had been duly adopted by the person purporting to be the decision-maker. It was submitted that an unsigned document of that nature would, at most, be considered a draft. The applicant put that a signature was an integral component of the decision and that without it there was no decision. Accordingly, it was submitted, there was no decision made under s.65 of the Act and thus no MRT-reviewable decision for the purpose of s.338(2) of the Act.

2. Whether or not a signature on the decision record is required for there to be a valid decision, the existence of an MRT-reviewable decision does not turn on the validity of the primary decision: Zubair v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (2004) 139 FCR 344; Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs v Ahmed (2005) 143 FCR 314; SZNZK v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship [2010] FCA 651. In Collector of Customs (NSW) v Brian Lawlor Automotive Pty Ltd (1979) 41 FLR 338, Smithers J at 370 repeated and adopted the observations of Brennan J who, as President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, said:

   A decision is a fact, to be distinguished from its legal consequences. A decision made beyond power but in its intended exercise does not carry the same legal consequences as it would have carried if there had been power to make it. Axiomatically, the legal consequences which it does carry depend upon the effect attributed by the law to the fact of the decision … Where a decision is made beyond power, the legal effect which the decision maker seeks to achieve is denied; but that says nothing as to whether the decision may be reviewed, quashed, or otherwise affected by order of a court or of an appeal tribunal. The denial of the legal effect desired does not itself prevent the decision from having the effect of enlivening a jurisdiction conferred by law upon a court or appeal tribunal to review, quash or otherwise affect the decision. The right to invoke the jurisdiction depends upon the terms of the law creating that right and conferring jurisdiction to grant relief against the decision in question.

3. As was said in SZGME v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship (2008) 168 FCR 487:

   It is the decision that has in fact been made that is reviewed. After Yilmaz 100 FCR 495; Zubair 139 FCR 344; Ahmed 143 FCR 314 and Uddin 149 FCR 1 reiterated this proposition: see, in particular, Ahmed 143 FCR 314 at [36]. The fact that some defect (even one leading to jurisdictional error) can be ascertained in the decision subject to review, does not prevent a review body exercising the powers and discretions of the person who made the decision: see, here, the Migration Act s 415. (at 495 [25] per Black CJ and Allsop J)

4. Consequently, the delegate’s decision was an MRT-reviewable decision even if it was void. This has the further consequence that the procedural requirements for the making of a valid review application applied to the application which the applicant lodged with the Tribunal on 12 May 2010. One of those requirements was that the application be lodged with the Tribunal within 21 days of the applicant’s deemed receipt of the letter of 7 April 2010. As the application was lodged outside this time limit, the Tribunal did not err when it concluded that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the application on the basis it had been made out of time.

Applicant not properly notified of delegate’s decision as decision record not signed

1. The applicant submitted that an unsigned decision record could not amount to proper notification pursuant to s.66 because the accuracy of that document and its contents could not be ascertained in the absence of the purported decision-maker’s signature and it might also lead to doubts concerning the identity of the author. He argued in this regard that although s.66(2) did not require the decision record to be signed, it was not an exhaustive list of the matters necessary to comprise an effective notification of a visa refusal. He appeared to suggest that the common law required the decision record be signed before it could amount to a proper notification. The applicant further submitted that the departmental letter of 7 April 2010 and the enclosed decision record were two separate documents and that the covering letter did not adopt the decision record so as to overcome the fact that the decision record had not been signed.

2. The applicant said that notification to him had been defective and that where there is defective notification an applicant is not taken to have received the purported decision in accordance with the requirements of s.66(2).  He submitted that this led to the result that time did not run for the purposes of an application to the Tribunal and that the Tribunal erred in concluding that his review application had been lodged out of time.

3. Contrary to the applicant’s submissions, it is clear from its terms that the departmental letter did expressly adopt what had been said in the decision record. Amongst other things, the letter said:

   After assessment against the relevant migration legislation, I have decided to refuse the grant of a visa to the above mentioned applicant. The reasons for the decision are set out in the attached decision record.

   As a result, it must be concluded that the genuineness of the decision record was sufficiently verified for the delegate’s decision to have been properly notified to the applicant.

4. The letter’s express adoption of the decision record is significant given that s.66 does not require the delegate’s decision to be notified or given to an applicant in one document; it may be given in two documents, as in this case: Benissa v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship [2010] FMCA 657 at [58]. As Allsop J said in Zhan v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous  Affairs (2003) 128 FCR 469:

   The two documents (the letter and the decision record) should not, it seems to me, be dealt with separately or differentially by  s 494C. They, together, amounted to the notification in a document or documents for the purposes of s.66. (at 481 [48])

5. Consequently, even were there an implicit requirement that the decision record be signed, that is in effect what occurred in this case. The two documents should be treated as the one notification and the signature on the letter served to satisfy any formal requirement that the notification be signed.

6. However, these considerations divert attention from the principal question presented by this aspect of the first allegation. The proceedings before the Court are concerned to determine whether the Tribunal’s decision is affected by jurisdictional error which, in this case, requires consideration of whether the alleged inadequacy in the departmental notification affected the Tribunal’s decision that it lacked jurisdiction such that it should be set aside. It was said in SZOFE v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship (2010) 185 FCR 129 that:

   … there cannot be adequate assessment of whether the requirements of s.66 of the Act have been breached, or of whether the jurisdiction of the RRT was not engaged, without some examination of the consequences of the alleged non-compliance. The judgment of the High Court in SZIZO has expressly drawn attention to the need to evaluate the practical consequences of failure to comply with procedural obligations under the Act. It is no longer possible, if it ever was, to speak of “imperative obligations” under the Act without specific attention to the purposes they are intended to serve … The consequences of an alleged lack of information need to be assessed in a particular case. (at 146 [67] per Buchanan and Nicholas JJ)

1. Even assuming that s.66(2) or the common law required the decision record to be signed, the Court was not taken to any evidence which would suggest that the absence of a signature had any practical consequences for the applicant, such as causing him to lodge his review application with the Tribunal out of time. For instance, although his solicitors wrote to the Tribunal on 6 July 2010 submitting that the delegate’s decision was not valid because the decision record had not been signed, nothing was advanced to suggest that this caused the applicant any practical disadvantage.

2. I find that the absence of a signature on the decision record did not invalidate the notification of the delegate’s decision and, further, that even if such a signature had been required, its absence did not lead the applicant to suffer any adverse consequences. In the circumstances, it has not been demonstrated that the Tribunal’s decision was affected by jurisdictional error by reason that the delegate’s decision record was not signed.

Applicant not properly notified of delegate’s decision because decision record did not adequately identify which criterion was not satisfied

1. Clause 572.223 relevantly provides:

   572.22  Criteria to be satisfied at time of decision

   …

   572.223

   (1)The Minister is satisfied that the applicant is a genuine applicant for entry and stay as a student because the applicant meets the requirements of subclause (2).

   (2)     An applicant meets the requirements of this subclause if:

   (a)for an applicant who is not a person designated under regulation 2.07AO:

   …

   (iii)   the Minister is satisfied that, while the applicant holds the visa, the applicant will have access to the funds demonstrated or declared in accordance with the requirements in Schedule 5A relating to the applicant’s financial capacity; …

2. The decision record attached to the departmental letter of 7 April 2010 relevantly expressed the delegate’s decision in the following terms:

   The applicant did not satisfy Regulation 572.223 for the following reasons: I am not satisfied that the applicant is a genuine applicant for stay as a student visa holder as they have not demonstrated that they have access to the funds declared in accordance with Schedule 5A.

   The delegate expressed his reasons for arriving at this conclusion in the following terms:

   The applicant provided financial evidence in another persons name in an offshore account, however, no evidence of how these funds are accessed by the applicant was provided and nothing indicating that the applicant has received money from this source in the past.

3. The applicant submitted that these statements did not satisfy s.66(2)(a) of the Act. Section 66(2)(a) is quoted above at [8] and requires that if a visa is refused because an applicant fails to satisfy a criterion for its grant, the notification of the refusal must specify the criterion which has not been satisfied.

4. The applicant submitted that cl.572.223 of sch.2 to the Regulations encompassed numerous criteria such as financial capacity, intention to comply with visa conditions and access to funds. He submitted that the reasons given in the decision record of 7 April 2010 were unclear as to which, if any, of the criteria found in cl.572.223 was or were relied on by the delegate. He submitted that the delegate should have identified which particular aspect of the clause was the one which he had failed to satisfy, saying that he had been left to speculate which of the various elements of cl.572.223 was the one on which the delegate was relying.

5. The applicant submitted that where it was unclear whether a criterion or criteria was or were relied on by the decision-maker then it could not be said that there had been specification of the criterion for the purposes of s.66(2)(a). In this regard, he referred to the statement of Allsop J in Zhan that:

   There needs to be some clarity and precision in an explicit identification of the relevant matter… The lack of clarity is not merely a matter of form. A person in the applicant’s position must be able to appreciate to what matters or issues his or her application for review must be directed. (at 482-483 [59]-[60])

6. Moreover, it was submitted, the delegate’s decision record did not appear to accord with the relevant criterion, being whether:

   the Minister is satisfied that, while the applicant holds the visa, the applicant will have access to the funds demonstrated or declared in accordance with Schedule S5A relating to the applicant’s financial capacity. (cl.572.223(2)(a)(iii))

   The applicant submitted that the criterion’s use of the future tense related to the Minister being satisfied as to some further circumstances. The applicant submitted that the decision record was expressed in the present tense, thereby suggesting that there was a criterion which required him to demonstrate that he would have access to the funds declared in accordance with sch.5A at the time of decision, rather than by reference to some further circumstance. It was submitted that this ambiguity was compounded by the reasons given by the delegate because they were expressed in terms of there being no evidence “of how these funds are accessed by the applicant”, suggesting a criterion requiring the applicant to demonstrate how he had accessed the relevant funds in the past.

7. It was also pointed out that the decision record purported to incorporate the words of cl.572.223 in something like an annexure but, in fact, quoted cl.573.223.

8. It was therefore submitted that the decision notification did not comply with the requirements of s.66(2) with the result that the notification required by the section had not been carried out and that the time for making an application to the Tribunal had not started to run. It was submitted that, in the circumstances, the Tribunal erred in concluding that the applicant’s application to it was made out of time.

9. In Chan v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (2003) 134 FCR 308, Gray J said that the purpose of s.66(2) was to provide a scheme of merits review which operated fairly and that an unsuccessful applicant should be given enough information to pursue the right of review if so disposed. His Honour said that:

   That information includes the criterion or criteria that the applicant failed to satisfy, any legislative provision that prevented the grant of a visa, in most cases the reasons why the criterion was not satisfied or the provision prevented the grant of the visa, and the steps required to make an application to review the decision. (at 320-321 [45])

   And that:

   Without all of this information, an unsuccessful applicant would be disadvantaged in the operation of the scheme, in which the time limits are strict and in which there exists no power, discretionary or otherwise, to enlarge them. (at 321 [45])

   His Honour continued:

   In this context, it is easy to see that each element of the requirements of s.66(2) is an integral part of the scheme of notification. The absence of any one item of information would disadvantage an unsuccessful applicant. There is, therefore, a strong case for saying that, if one of the requirements of s.66(2) has not been complied with, the duty of notification imposed by the section has not been carried out. (at 321 [46])

   His Honour concluded that the s.66 obligation to notify an applicant of the decision could only be discharged when all of the requirements of s.66(2) had been met.

10. However, as Emmett J said in SZOFE:

    While the Parliament may be taken to have intended that compliance with the requirements of s 66(2) would discharge the Minister’s obligation with respect to the giving of timely and effective notice of a decision, it does not follow that it was the intention that any departure from those steps would result in invalidity, without consideration of the extent and the consequences of the departure (see Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZIZO (2009) 238 CLR 627 at [35]). (at 137 [30])

    Similarly, as quoted above at [24], in SZOFE Buchanan and Nicholas JJ said that it is no longer possible, if ever it was, to speak of imperative obligations under the Act without specific attention to the purposes those obligations are intended to serve. Their Honours said that the consequences of alleged non-compliance with the Act must be examined and the practical consequences of failure to comply with the Act’s procedural obligations evaluated. Their Honours said that whether an applicant was denied an effective or adequate opportunity to make an application for review would depend on all the circumstances of a particular case and it was neither necessary nor desirable to attempt to answer such questions in the abstract.

11. I am bound by the statements of the law concerning the operation of s.66 made by their Honours in SZOFE. Consequently, the fact that the delegate may not have expressed his decision with the level of clarity which the applicant submits was necessary will be of no importance unless he has demonstrated that such a failure had practical consequences for him in the sense of being denied an effective or adequate opportunity to make an application for review to the Tribunal. No evidence of that sort was proffered by the applicant, his arguments being focused on an analysis of the text in question. In the circumstances, there is no basis to conclude that the applicant was, in fact, denied an effective and adequate opportunity to make an application to the Tribunal and thus the second allegation in the application is not made out.

12. However, if I am wrong in this conclusion I am, nevertheless, not of the view that the notification failed to specify the criterion which the applicant had failed to satisfy. There is more than one way to specify a criterion and the paraphrasing of its terms will be sufficient as long as the principal clause in which the criterion is located is identified; in such circumstances it is not necessary that the criterion be referred to specifically by paragraph or sub-paragraph number. Further, although the applicant submitted that reference to the criterion by a paraphrasing of its terms placed upon him an inappropriate burden of identifying which part of cl.572.223 he had failed to satisfy, he was hardly confronted with an impossible task. After all, the delegate referred him to cl.572.223 and used a form of words which effectively identified the criterion from cl.572.223(2)(a)(iii) which he had failed to satisfy. This was sufficient to meet the requirements of s.66(2)(a).

13. Further, although the delegate’s decision and the reasons for that decision were expressed in the present and past tenses and may perhaps reflect reviewable error on the delegate’s part, this does not affect the articulation of the actual decision which is all that s.66(2)(a) is concerned with. Similarly, the incorrect quotation of cl.573.223 in something like an annexure to the decision record did not affect the correctness of the citation of cl.572.223 in the body of that record. The decision spoke for itself and it is to the expression of that decision that s.66(2)(a) is directed.

14. For these reasons, I conclude that the delegate did, in any event, comply with the obligation which s.66(2)(a) imposed upon him. As a consequence, the decision was properly notified to the applicant and the Tribunal did not err in concluding that it had no jurisdiction to conduct the review which he sought.

Conclusion

1. Jurisdictional error on the part of the Tribunal has not been demonstrated. In the circumstances, it was entitled to conclude that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the application for review which was before it.

2. Consequently, the application will be dismissed.

I certify that the preceding forty-two (42) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Cameron FM

Date:  17 December 2010