The Value of Adjudicative Independence: Overlapping Conceptions of Administrative Justice in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal's Review of Visa Cancellations

Administrative justice is a highly contested concept. Mashaw and others discerned at least two models, respectively dealing with bureaucratic rationality and legality. Bureaucratic rationality emphasises accurate, efficient and cost-effective decision-making while in contrast, the legal model focuses on "court-centred adjudication", in which the parties' competing interests are fairly determined. I argue that these two conceptions of administrative justice are set against one another throughout the visa cancellation system but that when the Administrative Appeals Tribunal performs its decision-making function, the legal model dominates. When analysed through the lens of these competing models of administrative justice, we gain insight and understand the reasons for the resulting tension and criticism of Tribunal decision-making. Adjudicative independence, however, is an inherent aspect of fairness, which is in turn the key value of the legal model. For that reason, the Tribunal must be allowed to undertake the function it was designed to fulfil, namely independent merits review.