LEGW8118 Administrative Law: Analysis of Australian Passport Case

This case study examines the rejection of Mr. Gordon Michael Klasse's passport application by the Australian Department of Passports and Citizenship. The analysis focuses on potential breaches of administrative law principles, including transparency and procedural fairness. The case involves concerns about Mr. Klasse's past detention in Poland, the use of anonymous information, and potential biases in the decision-making process. The memorandum advises Mr. De Leonard to conduct another interview and thoroughly review the case, ensuring all information is accurate and free from personal vendettas. It also explores various legal and non-legal options for resolving the matter, including internal reviews, complaints to the Ombudsman, and potential legal action. The analysis references relevant legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, the Australian Passport Act, and the Administrative Decisions Act. Desklib provides this case study along with other solved assignments and past papers for students.

Running head: Australian department of passport case study
AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF PASSPORT CASE STUDY

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Australian Department of passport case study
DATE: 30/01/19
TO: Edward De Leonard
Cc Karl Barrington
From: Stefanie, Legal Officer
Subject: MEMORANDUM OF ADVICE RE: PASSPORT REJECTION CLAIM
_______________________________________________________________________
Thank you for your request for advice regarding your decision to reject Mr Klasse’s claim for a
new passport. Your questions, our answers to those questions, and the reasons for our answers
are set out below.
Background or Issue
This file is about Mr. Gordon Michael Klasse who is an applicant for the passport in Australia
where he requested the departmental file under the Act of Freedom of Information Act. But in
this scenario; Mr. Edward De Leonard the departmental head is worried, if the file that was
provided to Mr. Klasse contained the right information or not. Mr. Klasse was detained from
getting a passport issued by Edward under the instruction of the Australian and as the result, the
Australian passport was cancelled. In the departmental file, it was seen that the emails were
exchanged between the new departmental head Allan and Edward, where Edward warned Allan
about the case which he handled previously of Mr. Klasse. According to the circumstances of
Mr. Klasse, it was seen that the case of being detained from receiving the passport in the year of
2015, but in 2018 he applied for the passport in Australia again, which was advised by Mr.
Edward to Mr. Allan to reject this present appliction like the previous issue1. There was the
involvement of media regarding the case in 2015 as Mr. Klasse was a journalist. In 2015 Mr.
Klasse was detained by the Polish officers in Poland as he was a journalist and was working
undercover but the Australian ministries were not ready to accept the fact and claimed that he
1 Boughey, J. (2017). Re-Evaluating the Doctrine of Deference in Administrative Law. Fed. L. Rev., 45, 597.

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Australian Department of passport case study
was charged on criminal detention in Poland. Mr. Klasse claimed that the Australian law officers
and the Ministries had a personal vendetta against him so did not provide him of the passport.
Mr. Klasse claimed that the new passport that he applied for in 2018 was to visit his elderly
relatives in Australia2. Although the ministries proclaimed that Mr. Klasse was not answering
any of the questions regarding the detention in Poland clearly which made them doubtful about
Mr. Klasses real reason for the criminal charges.
What is our instruction to the Client, based on the scenario?
The client here is Edward De Leonard and Karl Barrington is the assistant secretary of Edward in
the department of passports and Citizenship. In this regard both the parties i.e. Mr. Klasse and
Edward are at fault. However, it seemed that the Department was quite a bit judgemental while
issuing the passport in 2018. The department of Passport did face a bit of a glitch in 2015 while
issuing the passport but while issuing the passport in the year of 2018 they did not review the
case as a new case. Under the administrative practice act, they did not follow all the criteria of
clearly demonstrating and drafting all the facts3. However, they can be defensive in the ground
where Mr. Klasse did not want to disclose about the detention which was necessary for the
Passport Department to know and determine to proceed with issuing the Passport. Mr. Klasse has
been agitated while answering the personal questions he was asked hence did not provide all the
right information. It would be advised to Mr. Edward to arrange another interview and review
the case thoroughly to make sure all the information that was provided were accurate and not
based any kind of personal vendetta.
Rule
What are the various legislation and provisions applicable to this scenario?
There are various legislations and laws applicable in regard to this scenario. The first law that is
applicable is the Freedom of Information Act where Mr. Klasse requested for the application or
departmental file regarding his passport application as he was not being allowed to get the
passport. Then the obvious law that comes in is the Australian Passport Act based on which it
2 Brooks, P. M., Vaux, D. L., & Williamson, R. (2016). Australia needs an Ombudsman or Office for
Research Integrity. Internal medicine journal, 46(10), 1233-1235.
3 Field, C. (2018). The ombudsman in the 21st century. UW Austl. L. Rev., 43, 118.

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would be judged if Mr. Klasse was the right applicant for the passport4. The Administrative Law
is a very important factor where Mr. Edward is worried if there is any kind of misleading by his
administration in this scenario of Mr. Klasse. There are other legal factors which are an
important factor in this scenario are Ombudsman, Privacy Legislation and Human rights and
Discrimination legislation. Therefore, the Acts which are applicable in this scenario are:
 Freedom of Information Act 1982
 Ombudsman Act 1976
 Administrative Decisions Act 1977
 Privacy Act 1988
 Judiciary Act 1903
Analysis
From the papers and correspondence, has the department followed good administrative
law principles and practice and the law in all regards? If not – what is an issue and why?
The Department of Passports was not transparent with Mr. Klasse and that was the most
important of breach of the administrative law of practices. According to the administrative law
practices, it is essential for the Department of Passports to be in synchronization with the
ministries which they did not do as they had an issue regarding the similar case that they faced
with Mr. Klasse in 20155. No authentic information was provided to Mr. Klasse when they
received a letter from an anonymous person.
Has Mr. Klasse been afforded procedural fairness – for instance, are there any
administrative law issues that could be relied upon in challenging the decision or seeking to
have it overturned?
In regard to Mr. Klasse, he was not completely truthful to the Department of Passports authority
as it is completely required on the grounds of Administrative laws. It was informed by the
department that Mr. Klasse was reluctant towards answering the questions were asked to him and
were agitated. This agitation led to being the main point regarding the rejection of the application
4 Greenewald Jr, J., Sequencing, C., Genes, C. O. Q., From, T. B. S. O. H., Respective, C. T., Fields, C. S., &
Officer, P. A. (2017). Freedom of Information and Privacy Act Office.
5 Leyland, P., & Anthony, G. (2016). Textbook on administrative law. Oxford University Press.

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Australian Department of passport case study
for Passport6. The identity theft issue was not informed to the department at the earliest by the
applicant which became another point where they understood the fake Facebook page to be
legitimate.
What other administrative law principles may be an issue from reviewing the file?
One notified the fact that was observed in regard to this file was that the department based their
case on another applicant named Monika Klone who was suspected and found in connection to
the extremist group. As they found a Facebook page and an anonymous letter they did not
disclose any of it to Mr. Klasse and took the same approach as the Monika Klone case7.
According to the legal risks it can be seen that they have not been truthful from their end and
being public servants they did not abide by the rule of investigating the whole scenario from all
the possible aspects rather than proceeding just based on assumptions. The records of that Mr.
Klasse is connected with the extremist group has not been documented by the security
authorities.
Are the decision makers properly authorized to make the decision?
The decision makers have been rightful and they have investigated as per the documents
provided to them appropriately. They have been investigating the files and they have regarded
this file earlier in 2015 as well so they have the right knowledge to deal with this applicant.
Is there material on file that should not be on there or may reflect poor judgment on the
officers and risk to the department? Are they serious enough to warrant the decision be
flawed?
The department of Passport risked their views evidently as they were not clear enough the reason
for their rejection of the passport and they did not provide any kind of right information to Mr.
Klasse as why the passport rejection took place. According to the departmental file, they rejected
the passport issue in 2018 based on an anonymous letter about which it was not informed to Mr.
Klasse and also based on a Facebook page about which the department members were skeptical8.
The department feared that their reputation might be dragged to mud as Mr. Klasse is a
6 Lidberg, J. (2016). Information access evolution: assessing Freedom of Information reforms in Australia.
Australian Journalism Review, 38(1), 73.
7 McDonald, A., & Terrill, G. (Eds.). (2016). Open Government: Freedom of information and privacy.
Springer.
8 Meidinger, E. (2017). The administrative law of global private-public regulation: The case of forestry. In
Crime and Regulation (pp. 113-153). Routledge.

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Australian Department of passport case study
journalist. In this scenario, the Department of Passports was supposed to discuss the concerns
with Mr. Klasse which they did not but merely informed that the application has been rejected. In
the letter from Mr. Klasse, he informed that he reported to the Police for identity theft but still
the Department of Passports did not review the file and rejected the file without any proper
evidence9.
What are the legal and non-legal options to resolve this matter available to the dept and
Mr. Klasse?
The best way to resolve the scenario non-legally is by conducting another meeting and portrays
all the facts clearly from both sides. Another chance for transparency needs to be provided by the
authorities as well as the applicant. This has become a burning question for both the parties that
they have not provided the details that they incurred properly to each other. The legal options
from the applicant's end would be to claim the FOI request properly and as well as to seek an
internal review of the whole application10. The legislative framework is to understand properly, a
complaint needs to be lodged in the Ombudsman's office, an application has to be made to the
AAT and all the data that has been provided has to analyzed critically.
The Department of Passports if takes legal actions then they need to comply with the legislative
requirements, the internal review needs to be conducted properly, well-reasoned statements are
to be provided to the applicant, the decision-making relationship between the agency and the
ministry has to be administrative11. The whole file that has been submitted by the applicant has to
be reviewed critically.
Lastly, in light of the legal and administrative options, and having regard to all the
information available, what is your recommendation to Mr. Leonardo in the
circumstances?
Based on all the reviews being conducted on the department file and the details provided by the
applicant it can be seen that there are a few faults from both ends so the department needs to
review the file once more and also needs to inform the applicant about the letter that was sent.
The investigation of the identity has to be done from the beginning. The department needs to
9 Rosenbloom, D. H. (2018). Administrative law for public managers. Routledge.
10 Shepherd, E. (2015). Freedom of information, the right to access information, open data: who is at the table?. The
Round Table, 104(6), 715-726.
11 Torpey, J. C. (2018). The invention of the passport: surveillance, citizenship and the state. Cambridge
University Press.

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Australian Department of passport case study
review the file from the national security12. The only way to solve this problem not being in court
can be based on how the case is approached again. Edward can review this as a new file and take
all the decisions based on the facts and not on assumptions.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the file needs to be reviewed by the Authority once again to avoid any
further damage or chaos. However, that does not regard in changing the decision but
transparency would be appreciated on this ground.
Yours faithfully
Sign off…
Stefanie
12 Worthy, B. (2017). The politics of freedom of information: how and why governments pass laws that
threaten their power. Oxford University Press.

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Australian Department of passport case study
Bibliography
Boughey, Janina, ‘Re-Evaluating The Doctrine Of Deference In Administrative Law’ (2017)
45(4) Federal Law Review.
Brooks, P. M., D. L. Vaux, and R. Williamson, ‘Australia Needs An Ombudsman Or Office For
Research Integrity’ (2016) 46(10) Internal Medicine Journal’.
Field, C., ‘The ombudsman in the 21st century’ (2018) 43 (9) UW Austl. L. Rev.
Greenewald Jr, J., Sequencing, C., Genes, C. O. Q., From, T. B. S. O. H., Respective, C. T.,
Fields, C. S., & Officer, P. A., ‘Freedom of Information and Privacy Act Office’ (2017).
Leyland, P., & Anthony, G., ‘Textbook on administrative law. Oxford University Press’ (2016).
Lidberg, J., ‘Information access evolution: assessing Freedom of Information reforms in
Australia’ (2016) 38(1) Australian Journalism Review.
McDonald, A., & Terrill, G. (Eds.)., ‘Open Government: Freedom of information and privacy’
(2016) Springer.
Meidinger, E., ‘The administrative law of global private-public regulation: The case of forestry’
2017) 113 (8) In Crime and Regulation Routledge.
Rosenbloom, D. H., ‘Administrative law for public managers’. (2018) Routledge.
Shepherd, E., ‘Freedom of information, right to access information, open data: who is at the
table?’ (2015) 104(6) The Round Table.
Torpey, J. C., ‘The invention of the passport: surveillance, citizenship and the state’ (2018)
Cambridge University Press.
Worthy, B., ‘The politics of freedom of information: how and why governments pass laws that
threaten their power’ (2017) Oxford University Press.