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248: Minister, chief executive, or refugee and protection officer may be respondent in review proceedings relating to Tribunal decision
or “Officials can respond to challenges against Tribunal decisions”
You could also call this:

“Legal limits on challenging Immigration Tribunal decisions in court”

You can’t go to court to review a decision if you can appeal it to the Tribunal under this Act. You need to appeal to the Tribunal first, and they need to make final decisions on all parts of your appeal.

You also can’t go to court to review anything that’s being looked at by the Tribunal until they’ve made their final decisions about it.

After the Tribunal has made its final decisions, you can only go to court for a review if the High Court says you can. If the High Court says no, you can ask the Court of Appeal for permission.

If you want to ask the High Court for permission to review a Tribunal decision, you need to do it within 28 days of being told about the Tribunal’s decision. If you miss this deadline, you can ask the High Court for more time, but you must do this before the 28 days are up.

If the Court of Appeal says you can’t review the decision in the High Court, that’s the end of it. You can’t ask again.

When deciding whether to let you review a decision, the court will think about whether there are issues that couldn’t be dealt with properly in an appeal against the Tribunal’s final decision. If there are such issues, the court will consider if they’re important enough to be reviewed by the High Court.

If a court gives you permission to review a decision, they’ll say exactly what issues you’re allowed to argue about in court.

This part of the law doesn’t change any other rules in this Act that affect your ability to ask for a court review.

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Next up: 249A: Applications for appeal and judicial review of Tribunal decision to be lodged together

or “Rules for challenging Tribunal decisions through appeal and judicial review”
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Part 7 Appeals, reviews, and other proceedings
Appeal from Tribunal and judicial review

249Restriction on judicial review of matters within Tribunal’s jurisdiction

  1. No review proceedings may be brought in any court in respect of a decision where the decision (or the effect of the decision) may be subject to an appeal to the Tribunal under this Act unless an appeal is made and the Tribunal issues final determinations on all aspects of the appeal.

  2. No review proceedings may be brought in any court in respect of any matter before the Tribunal unless the Tribunal has issued final determinations in respect of the matter.

  3. Review proceedings may then only be brought in respect of a decision or matter described in subsection (1) or (2) if the High Court has granted leave to bring the proceedings or, if the High Court has refused to do so, the Court of Appeal has granted leave.

  4. An application to the High Court for leave to bring review proceedings must be made—

  5. not later than 28 days after the date on which the Tribunal’s determination in respect of the decision or matter to which the review proceedings relate is notified to the person bringing the proceedings; or
    1. within such further time as the High Court may allow on application made before the expiry of that 28-day period.

      1. A decision by the Court of Appeal to refuse leave to bring review proceedings in the High Court is final.

      2. In determining whether to grant leave for the purposes of this section, the court to which the application for leave is made must have regard to—

      3. whether review proceedings would involve issues that could not be adequately dealt with in an appeal against the final determination of the Tribunal; and
        1. if paragraph (a) applies, whether those issues are, by reason of their general or public importance or for any other reason, issues that ought to be submitted to the High Court for review.

          1. A court that grants leave under subsection (3) to bring review proceedings must state the issue or issues to be determined in the proceedings.

          2. Nothing in this section limits any other provision of this Act that affects or restricts the ability to bring review proceedings.

          Notes
          • Section 249: replaced, on , by section 63 of the Immigration Amendment Act 2015 (2015 No 48).