Ketjan v Assistant Minister [2019] FCA 516
Ketjan’s visa was cancelled under a migration provision requiring cancellation where someone has a substantial criminal record and is currently imprisoned. The decision-maker took into account a custodial sentence completed before the provision came into force. Was this prevented by the presumption against retrospective laws?13
The court held (at [40]) that the provision didn’t affect rights that existed in the past. It simply used past events ‘as a basis for what it prescribes for the future’14. iTip – legislation is not retrospective simply because it refers to events that happened before commencement of the law in question.
This case is from Episode 48 of interpretationNOW!
Footnotes:
13 Maxwell [1957] HCA 7 (at [7]), Episodes 7 & 39.
14 Robertson [1973] VR 819 (at 824).