Case: Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Liang [1996] HCA 6 ; (1996) 185 CLR 259
Outcome: followed
Also relevant to the making of that determination is a proper understanding as to the role played by a statutory requirement to provide reasons. A primary purpose in imposing such a requirement is to inform the parties as to why their evidence or arguments have prevailed or been rejected. Reasons provided by an administrative tribunal, it is well accepted, are not to be read with an eye keenly attuned to the perception of error: Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Liang [1996] HCA 6 ; (1996) 185 CLR 259. In a passage which is now oft-cited, Brennan CJ, Toohey, McHugh and Gummow JJ there made the following observations as to the proper role of a reviewing court when considering a statement of reasons provided by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal: When the Full Court referred to "beneficial construction", it sought to adopt an approach mandated by a long series of cases, the best exemplar of which is Collector of Customs v Pozzolanic [1993] FCA 322 ; [(1993) 43 FCR 280]. In that case, a Full Court of the Federal Court (Neaves, French and Cooper JJ) collected authorities for various propositions as to the practical restraints on judicial review. It was said that a court should not be "concerned with looseness in the language ... nor with unhappy phrasing" of the reasons of an administrative decision-maker. The Court continued: "The reasons for the decision under review are not to be construed minutely and finely with an eye keenly attuned to the perception of error." These propositions are well settled. They recognise the reality that the reasons of an administrative decision-maker are meant to inform and not to be scrutinised upon over-zealous judicial review by seeking to discern whether some inadequacy may be gleaned from the way in which the reasons are expressed. In the present context, any court reviewing a decision upon refugee status must beware of turning a review of the reasons of the decision-maker upon proper principles into a reconsideration of the merits of the decision. This has been made clear many times in this Court. ... (citations omitted) So construed, the reasons of the Tribunal in the present proceeding reveal a careful consideration of the evidence that was presented and a careful consideration of the case being advanced by the Applicant. No doubt because the Applicant was unrepresented, no clear submission was advanced that any particular aspect of hardship to the Applicant was a discrete matter which had to be separately addressed and resolved in any manner different to that set forth in the Tribunal's reasons. " Hardship ", it must be recognised, is a matter which may manifest itself in any one of a number of different ways. To that extent, it is a state of indeterminate content. But no particular piece of evidence could be identified which gave rise to any particular aspect of " hardship " which was not addressed by the Tribunal in its reasons. 38 Not surprisingly, the reasons of the Tribunal address the terms of Direction No 21. And, even though that Direction does not mention hardship to the Applicant as a matter specifically to be addressed, it was inevitable that a decision affirming the delegate's decision would operate to deny to him an ability to remain in Australia. His desire to remain was presumably the reason why he sought review by the Tribunal. Even though such reference as was made to the effect of the decision upon the Applicant may have been dealt with within the context of the Direction itself, hardship to the Applicant remained a matter taken into account by the Tribunal and adequately addressed by it in the reasons provided. 39 The manner in which the Tribunal has resolved the evidence and submissions advanced before it, it is considered, does not expose the Tribunal to any sustainable contention that it failed to consider the hardship that affirming the decision under review would occasion the Applicant, nor to any sustainable contention that it failed to make those findings of fact material to the decision it made.