Abebe v Commonwealth

Abebe v Commonwealth, (Abebe) is a decision of the High Court of Australia and important in Australian Administrative Law. The decision ranks as the seventeenth most cited decision of the High Court.^[1]

Abebe v Commonwealth
Court	High Court of Australia
Full case name	Abebe v The Commonwealth of Australia
Decided	14 April 1999
Citation	HCA 14; 197 CLR 510; 162 ALR 1; 73 ALJR 584
Court membership
Judges sitting	Gleeson CJ, Gaudron, McHugh, Gummow, Kirby, Hayne and Callinan JJ
Case opinions
Appeal dismissed Gleeson CJ, McHugh JJ Gaudron J Gummow, Hayne JJ Kirby J Callinan J

Facts

High Court of Australia

Abebe arose from the Refugee Review Tribunal (the Tribunal) refusing to grant refugee status to the applicant on the grounds she had lied during the interview process, undermining her credibility. The applicant sought judicial review of the decision on the grounds of being denied natural justice and that no reasonable authority could have made such a decision.^[2][3]

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.^[3]