Background

The applicant travelled to Australia on a four-year visa.  After working in Australia for approximately two years and prior to instructing us, the applicant and his large family applied to the Department for a permanent employer nomination visa.  This visa application was refused.   When the Department sent the decision to the applicant it was not correctly addressed to the client and did not contain proper reasons as to why the applicant’s visa was refused.

The applicant did not appeal this decision to the Migration Review Tribunal within the normally allowed time.  As a result, when he did appeal to the Migration Review Tribunal, the Tribunal said that they could not change the Department’s decision to refuse him a visa.   By this time, the applicant did not have a visa, he could not work and it was possible that he and his family, including 8 children, could be removed from Australia.

Our involvement

At this stage the client came to see us.  After carefully examining the client’s case we lodged an application in the Federal Magistrates Court.  We argued that Immigration’s decision refusing to consider the client’s visa was not a proper decision because it did not set out (in the technical way required) the reasons why his visa application was refused and was not properly addressed to him.  We also argued that the Tribunal should have appreciated this problem and re-considered the client’s case.

In response to our carefully drafted arguments, the solicitors for the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs agreed with us that the decision to refuse the client’s visa was not properly notified.  The court agreed that the Tribunal should have fully considered the client’s appeal.  It was agreed between us and the parties that the client’s case should be sent back to the Tribunal for redetermination, and the court made orders to that effect.

Back at the MRT, we then obtained a successful outcome for our clients.