The migration rules are changing constantly and the process is getting harder each year.
Many applicants are unaware that obtaining an Australian visa is a matter of law, and it is important that you get help from an experienced Migration Lawyer before it’s too late!
When you engage an experience migration lawyer from The Migration Place, we will make sure that your application is prepared to the highest professional standard to maximize your prospects of success. If you’re going to invest the money, you want to make sure that it’s done right the first time – you don’t want to waste money and time in legal proceedings that could have been easily avoidable.
Suppose that you decided to prepare and submit your visa application yourself. Now suppose that your application was REFUSED and you needed to seek review of the Department’s decision before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. In the meantime, you obtained a Bridging Visa B and went overseas. What happens if the Administrative Appeals Tribunal issues notice of a hearing while you are overseas?
Let’s review Malecaj v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2016) FCA 1508 (13 December 2016). In this case, the applicant had sought a student visa in order to study English in Australia. This visa application was refused by the Department. The applicant then applied for merits review to the Tribunal, who issued an acknowledgement that it had received the application for review on the same day that the application was made. However, the applicant was sent no further communication from the Tribunal until 17 months later, on 24 September 2014. At this point, you must be wondering is that even possible? The answer is YES.
In the meantime, the applicant had obtained a Bridging Visa B that allowed him to travel overseas. On 24 September 2014 -17 months after he applied for review- a communication was sent to the applicant informing him that a hearing had been scheduled on his case for 31 October 2014. As mentioned before, the applicant had traveled overseas and never received the letter. As a result, the applicant did not appear before the Tribunal on the scheduled hearing (31 October 2014). The Tribunal then recorded the applicant as a “no show” and proceeded to make a decision on the review application without taking any further action to allow or enable the applicant to appear. The Tribunal refused to reschedule the hearing because the applicant had not attempted to contact them to explain why he could not attend to scheduled hearing. The next step in this scenario is the Federal Court. Finally, the Federal Court concluded that the Tribunal’s failure to reschedule the hearing was legally unreasonable, because the outcome of this decision was that it denied the applicant of a meaningful chance to present his case. There is a total of 44 months between the application for review was lodged and the final decision of the Federal Court was made!
This case is a clear example of why applicants need to engage an experienced migration lawyer even before lodging a visa application. If the abovementioned applicant did engage our lawyers before seeking review of the Department’s decision before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, any communication issued by the Tribunal would have been addressed to us, and our lawyers would have informed the Tribunal that the applicant had gone overseas, and rescheduled the hearing. Furthermore, when applying for a visa, you need to get it right the first time. However, if it is too late for you and you are trying to reverse a refusal, you need to get legal advice as soon as possible. Please note that you must lodge your Appeal within a specified time and the time period is short! If you are already seeking a review at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, you need to know that the review process involves an intimate understanding of Court procedure and administrative law – noting administrative law is a complex and difficult area of law which largely deals with the technical issues associated with determining whether the decision maker followed a fair process.
By engaging an experienced migration lawyer to help you with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing, you can rest assured that you will get a fair hearing and we will be able to advise you if you have any grounds to appeal further to the Federal Court if you receive an adverse decision.
Are you having a difficult time securing your Australian visa?
Contact us TODAY for help on mail@themigrationplace.com or +61 7 3229 4025.