Report 32 - Review of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act: the Ambit of the Act 1989

Review of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act: the Ambit of the Act, 1989

Summary of the report

The report was transmitted to the Government on 17 March 1989, and tabled in the Parliament on 8 June 1989.

The report contains 17 recommendations, including: a recommendation that the ambit of the Act be extended to certain non-statutory decisions made by officers of the Commonwealth; that many decisions referred to in Schedule 1 to the Act (concerning exclusions from the Act) ought to be repealed; and, a recommendation that decisions of magistrates in committal proceedings ought to be included in that Schedule.

The Council also recommended that the Federal Court should have a discretion to refuse relief or grant an application under the Act, if it was satisfied that to do so would be in the interests of justice, or if it was satisfied that the decision under review, or conduct engaged in for the making of that decision, was not justiciable.

Response to the report

The Government decided that it would not respond to this report, until the Council's report on statements of reasons had been completed - see Report No. 33