Case: Craig v South Australia [1995] HCA 58 ; (1995) 184 CLR 163
Outcome: applied
is a jurisdictional error for an administrative tribunal to ignore relevant material: Craig v South Australia [1995] HCA 58 ; (1995) 184 CLR 163 at 179 per Brennan, Deane, Toohey, Gaudron and McHugh JJ. The tribunal must give its reasons for its decision pursuant to s 43(2) of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act . The reasons must include the tribunal's findings on material questions of fact together with a reference to the evidence or other material on which those findings were based: s 43(2B). As McHugh, Gummow and Hayne JJ observed in Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Yusuf [2001] HCA 30 ; (2001) 206 CLR 323 at 346 [68] , in respect of the analogous provision in s 430 of the Migration Act , the tribunal need not make findings on any and every matter of fact objectively material to its decision. They said that s 430: "... requires no more than that the tribunal set out the findings which it did make. Neither expressly nor impliedly does this section require the tribunal to make , and then set out, some findings additional to those which it actually made." (original emphasis) The assessment was considered by the tribunal in relation to Mr Toro Martinez's return to Columbia and the position of his fianc&eacute;e. But, the tribunal assessed his relationship with his daughter only on the basis of the 15 April 2008 letter. The tribunal did not expressly consider the assessment's conclusion that it would be unreasonable to expect the daughter to travel to Columbia, no doubt, because of its finding as to the nature of the relationship between her and her father. Since I have found that the tribunal ignored and thus, failed to have regard to the strongly corroborative and relevant material in the daughter's 2001 interview and 2007 letter, I am satisfied that it committed a jurisdictional error: Craig 184 CLR at 179. Ground 3 Mr Toro Martinez argued that the tribunal reached a conclusion not open on the evidence before it, namely that it was reasonable for it to conclude that he would face no serious danger of personal harm by returning to Columbia. The tribunal noted that he had claimed that he might face personal danger in "certain regions" but that he had not asserted that Cordoba was one of them. It said he had no knowledge of any particular problems, of the nature he feared, in the town in which his sole surviving uncle lived. The tribunal had relied upon the conclusion of the departmental officer who had compiled the international obligations and humanitarian concerns assessment that there was a mere possibility that Mr Toro Martinez might suffer serious harm as a result of indiscriminate generalised or random violence were he to return to Columbia. He complained that the tenor of the assessment was replete with references to instability, human rights abuses at every level of government and society in Columbia, and the insurgency of guerilla groups who also indulged in substantial and repeated violations of human rights. He claimed that country information also supported a very pessimistic assessment of the state of civil society in Columbia.