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Immigration Act 2009

Appeals, reviews, and other proceedings - Special procedure where classified information involved

242: Tribunal to approve summary of allegations

You could also call this:

“Tribunal prepares and approves a summary of allegations for cases involving secret information”

When a case involves secret information, the Tribunal needs to make sure you understand what the allegations are without revealing the secret parts. Here’s how it works:

The head of the agency with the secret information will write a summary of the allegations for the Tribunal. The Tribunal will then look at this summary and either approve it or change it to make it better. Once the summary is ready, the Tribunal will give it to you, your special lawyer, and other important people involved in the case.

The Tribunal can only use the secret information if they can sum it up without sharing secrets that could cause problems. When deciding how to change the summary, they’ll listen to what the agency thinks and might also consider what you or the person who made the decision think.

The summary doesn’t have to list or explain the secret documents in detail or say where they came from. If any of the secret information is taken out or if new secret information is added, they’ll make a new summary in the same way.

Remember, your special lawyer can’t help make or change the summary. This is to keep the information as safe as possible.

This whole process is meant to give you a chance to respond to information that might be used against you, even when that information is secret.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM1440971.

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Part 7 Appeals, reviews, and other proceedings
Special procedure where classified information involved

242Tribunal to approve summary of allegations

  1. The purpose of this section is to give an appellant or affected person an opportunity to comment on potentially prejudicial information in the course of proceedings involving classified information before the Tribunal.

  2. If proceedings before the Tribunal involve classified information,—

  3. the chief executive of the relevant agency must develop, and provide to the Tribunal for approval, a summary of the allegations arising from the classified information; and
    1. the Tribunal must—
      1. approve the summary developed under paragraph (a); or
        1. modify the summary, and then approve it; and
        2. following approval (with or without modification) of the summary, the Tribunal must provide the summary to the appellant or affected person, the special advocate, and counsel assisting the court and the special adviser (if any and if relevant).

          1. For the purposes of making its decision, the Tribunal may rely on the classified information only to the extent that the allegations arising from the information can be summarised without disclosing classified information that would be likely to prejudice the interests described in section 7(3).

          2. In determining whether, or how, to modify the summary, the Tribunal—

          3. must have regard to the views of the relevant agency; and
            1. may have regard to the views of the applicant or the person who made the decision to which the proceedings apply.

              1. Nothing in this section requires the summary to—

              2. list any documents or other source material containing classified information; or
                1. detail the contents of any documents or other source material containing classified information; or
                  1. specify the source of any documents or other source material containing classified information.

                    1. An updated summary must be prepared and provided in the same way as if it were a summary prepared under subsection (2) if—

                    2. any classified information that was proposed to be relied on in the course of the appeal or matter is withdrawn (unless all the information is withdrawn); or
                      1. further relevant classified information becomes available that may be relied on in the course of the appeal or matter.

                        1. To avoid doubt, a special advocate may not be involved in the process of approving, amending, or updating a summary (including an updated summary).