Abebe v Commonwealth

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Abebe v Commonwealth
Coat of Arms of Australia.svg
CourtHigh Court of Australia
Full case nameAbebe v The Commonwealth of Australia
Decided14 April 1999
Citation(s)197 CLR 510
Case opinions
Appeal dismissed
Gleeson CJ, McHugh JJ
Gaudron J
Gummow, Hayne JJ
Kirby J
Callinan J
Court membership
Judge(s) sittingGleeson CJ, Gaudron, McHugh, Gummow, Kirby, Hayne and Callinan JJ

Abebe v Commonwealth, also known as 'Abebe' is a decision of the High Court of Australia.

The case is an important decision in Australian Administrative Law. According to LawCite, Chen has been cited the twentieth most times of any High Court decision.[1][2]

Facts[]

High Court of Australia

Ms Abebe was denied a refugee visa by the Refugee Review Tribunal. It had held her credibility was undermined during the interview process due to her repeated lying to officials about her background. She sought review of the RRT's decision on the grounds that she had been denied natural justice and the RRT's decision was 'Wednesbury' unreasonable.[3][4]

The Federal Court held that her review grounds were unavailable due to amendments made to the Migration Act removing various grounds of review for cases heard before Federal Courts.

Abebe then applied to the High Court in its original jurisdiction for review of the RRT's decision. Additionally, her application asked the court to rule that the aforementioned amendments to the act were unconstitutional.

Judgement[]

A majority of the court held that the Parliament's amendments were constitutionally valid. It commented within the judgement that restricting federal courts in this way would inevitably cause problems for the High Court in managing workload and procedure.

In effect, appeals based on the grounds excluded by amendments to the Migration Act; would be able to be taken up directly by the High Court, so long as they fell within one of the section 75 constitutional writs.

In addition, the court ruled unanimously that Abebe's unreliability at interview entitled the RRT to dismiss her refugee claim.[4]

References[]

  1. ^ Note: LawCite citation statistics track the written judgements of courts, journal articles, and tribunals. (both in Australia and overseas) https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/LawCite?cit=&party1=&party2=&court=High%2BCourt%2Bof%2BAustralia&juris=&article=&author=&year1=&year2=&synonyms=on&filter=on&cases-cited=&legis-cited=&section=&large-search-ok=1&sort-order=cited
  2. ^ Note: data is as of September 2020
  3. ^ "Abebe v Commonwealth [1999] HCA 14 - BarNet Jade". jade.io. Retrieved 2021-05-30.
  4. ^ a b "Abebe v The Commonwealth - Case Note". Admin Review. 51: 47. 14 April 1999 – via Austlii.
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