Australia, Aug. 19 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on July 18:

1. TOn 15 July 2025, following a hearing, the Tribunal made an order declining to direct the Registrar to issue a summons requested by FZK, the Applicant in these proceedings.

2. The Applicant has requested written reasons for the making of that order under s 62 of the Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2013 (CAT Act).

3. These are the Tribunal's reasons for the making of the order declining to direct the Registrar to issue a summons.

Background

4. On 4 February 2025 the Applicant applied for administrative review of a decision of the Department of Customer Service (the Respondent). The grounds provided in the application are:

Breach of s15 of PPIP Act that the Respondent admitted 'resignation' on my P file is erroneous, but refused to remove it from my P file, worse still, illegally altered it to 'employment terminated', falsely claimed that I requested to amend it that way.

While in fact, the evidence from the Internal Review report shows the Department's reason for the error was false.

5. Attached to the application for administrative review is a 15 January 2025 Privacy internal review report of the Respondent (the internal review). The internal review describes:

1) On 3 December 2024 the Applicant complained about a refusal of the Respondent to amend the Applicant's personal information under s 15 of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (the PPIP Act);

2) The Applicant's request for amendment was made on 4 November 2024; and

3) The Applicant first became aware of the Respondent's conduct on 15 November 2024.

6. The internal review made findings that the Respondent: had complied with the requirements of the PPIP Act; had agreed to make appropriate alterations to the Applicant's personal information; and had agreed to add a statement provided to the Applicant "where there are no appropriate alterations to be made".

7. On 10 June 2025 the Applicant applied for a summons to be issued to a named officer of the Respondent to attend and give evidence in the proceedings. The reasons for the request provided:

"These proceedings concern erroneous resignation record on the Applicant's P file with conflicting entries in several documents. The Respondent admits the error but claimed the Applicant's employment was terminated without any evidence. [name redacted] is the payroll officer created the erroneous records and entries. Therefore he is the only person can tell the Tribunal based on what document he created the erroneous records."

8. On 11 June 2025 the Registrar refused the application for summons to be issued on the following basis:

"The administrative review application lodged 4 February 2025 concerns conduct of the Department of Customer Service that the applicant became aware of in November 2024. The proposed summons received 10 June 2025 appears to seek evidence in relation to separate, earlier alleged conduct surrounding the creation of purportedly "erroneous records and entries". The summons lacks a legitimate forensic purpose and is refused."

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1981b90a2c0ebbbb7572f629)

Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.