Section 426 of the Migration Act requires the Tribunal to ‘have regard to’ an applicant’s request to obtain further evidence from, or call, a particular witness. The Tribunal is not required to in fact do so.
However, the authorities are clear that the question of whether the Tribunal should is a discretion that must (therefore) be exercised reasonably.
In addition, the Tribunal cannot ‘merely go through the motions’–there must be a genuine consideration of whether to exercise the discretion: CBZH v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2014] FCA 1023.
Also, in BOL15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] FCCA 1994, Lucev J said:
Whether or not calling the Applicant’s Proposed Witness may have resulted in evidence being given which did not assist the applicant is not to the point, rather, the Court cannot preclude the possibility that such evidence might have assisted the applicant to establish his claims