by Paul Cutler | Apr 14, 2020 | Uncategorized
From the time that an application for review is lodged in the AAT to the time it is determined in a hearing is “around 470 days” (or about 15-16 months).
There are however, provisions for “priority processing” and for a “fast track decision”. These are both separate processes. The guidelines for priority processing are set out in a President’s Direction. The requirements for a fast track decision are:
“A fast track decision is one where the Department of Home Affairs refused the application because of a discrete criterion that does not require a subjective assessment, and evidence has now been given to the Tribunal that unequivocally satisfies the objective criterion in dispute. For example, if a visa application was refused only because suitable evidence of an English test result was not given to the delegate, and evidence of that suitable test result is now given to the Tribunal, a fast track decision may be possible.
A fast track decision cannot be made where a subjective assessment of criteria is required (eg. genuineness); or where the Tribunal must consider all relevant criteria in order to reach a favourable decision (eg. Employer nomination/sponsorship).”
I am grateful for the MIA bringing this to the attention of its members in its notice which was circulated to members this morning.
by Paul Cutler | Mar 25, 2020 | Uncategorized
The general rule when applying for visas onshore is that you need to hold a valid visa to be able to apply for a visa of a different class. One of the exceptions is applications for a partner visas. However, if you don’t hold a substantive visa when you apply for your partner visa, you will still need to comply with the schedule 3. That basically means that you have a 28 day period of grace after the expiry of your last substantive visa. The good news is that schedule 3 can be waived if there are compelling circumstances.
What makes circumstances compelling is very subjective and depends on the facts of each case.
One might think that it would be a compelling circumstance if there was an Australian citizen child of the relationship. This is not necessarily the case as the applicants in the recent full Federal Court case of Singh v Minister for Home Affairs [2020] FCAFC 7 found out. The AAT found that they had the child to “bolster” their chances of success in their application. The Federal Court agreed (it’s actually a bit more complicated than that), but the following submission from the Minister was accepted:
[89] It was submitted that the question of the motivation for having the child was not determinative of the Tribunal’s conclusion that “compelling reasons” did not exist. It was that the parties chose to have a child (or, more accurately, successfully attempted to have a child) knowing that the appellant may have to go off-shore to make a further application that rendered the circumstances devoid of the required characteristic. The effect of the Tribunal’s reasoning is that the circumstance that there was a child of the relationship was not compelling when the parties sought to have that child knowing that the appellant was not a resident and knowledgeable of the requirement that he may have to go off-shore in order to apply for a permanent visa.
If you have run foul of schedule 3 I can help you with some professional advice on what’s relevant (or not).
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by Paul Cutler | Mar 2, 2020 | Uncategorized
Many of the court decisions about visa cancellation on character grounds are focussed on the reasons for the cancellation. However, once a cancellation decision is made, section 501CA(3) Migration Act requires the Minister to, as soon as practicable after making the decision to “give the person, in the way that the Minister considers appropriate in the circumstances….” notice (and particulars) of the decision and invite the person to make representations.
The basic facts of EFX17 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2018] FCCA 3179 appeared to be unremarkable. A Hazaragi speaking Shia Muslim Afghan man of Hazara ethnicity was given his “cancellation papers” by a corrective services officer in an interview room in the Brisbane Correctional Centre.
One of the issues in EFX17 was whether the requirement to “consider appropriate” was itself a decision which was reviewable independently of the cancellation decision. A majority of the Full Federal Court, Rares and Greenwood JJ said the answer to the question was “yes” for the reasons set out below:
- To be reviewable, the decision had to be one of an “administrative character” as required by s474(2);
- the Court found that the things required under 501CA(3) were within the meaning of 474(3)(g) “doing or refusing to do any other act of thing”;
- The obligation on the Minister was not simply one of “service”, it was a requirement to “give notice”;
- the Minister failed to consider the EFX17’s literacy (he was illiterate in his native language), capacity to understand English, mental capacity (there had been mental health issues), incarceration and the facilities available to him to seek relevant advice;
- there is an “irreducible minimum standard” that the Minister did not meet;
- in those circumstances, the Court found that there was a jurisdictional error.
There was also a dissenting judgment from Logan J.
The decision is good news as far as procedural fairness is concerned. It means that careful consideration needs to be given not just to the cancellation decision, but also to the “giving” of information to the person affected.
There was a second issue in EFX17 concerning the validity of delegation of tasks to correctional service officers. I will blog about that on another day.
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by Paul Cutler | Feb 11, 2020 | Uncategorized
Both the Migration Act and the Australian Citizenship Act rely on power to make laws with respect to “naturalisation and aliens” (section 51(xix) of the Constitution).
The High Court today (11 February 2020) has handed down a very interesting decision in relation to the question of who is an alien. Both of the Plaintiffs (who were not related to each other) were:
- born outside of Australia, one in New Zealand and the other in PNG;
- citizens of their respective birth countries and both had lived in Australia for a long time;
- both had their visas cancelled because they fell foul of the character test as a result of crimes they committed; and
- were both in immigration detention.
At this stage you may be asking what’s the issue? There is nothing remarkable about those facts. However, what sets this case apart is that both men were of aboriginal descent, one being a member of the Gungarri People and the other a descendant of the Kamilaroi group. Both were accepted as such by elders of those tribes. The legal issue that the High Court had to grapple with is whether the plaintiffs were “aliens” (clearly not the type in the photograph). If not, then the power to cancel their visas did not apply to them.
The judgment is long and complicated and each of the seven judges gave their own reasons. The net result is that by majority (Justices Bell, Nettle, Gordon and Edelman) of 4:3 it was found that aboriginal Australians, even if foreign citizens, are not aliens. There may be exceptions to that if they had, for example, renounced their aboriginal identity.
Although the judgments are long (468 paragraphs) and complicated, it is interesting to see how the court considers issues such as: what is aboriginally as per the test set out in Mabo?; the effect of white settlement and federation (prior to which there were no aliens); and whether the argument was effectively for a race based limitation to constitutional power? There is a long discussion about the previous “alien cases” that have been before the Court.
The High Court has helpfully published a short summary of the case or if you’re up for a longer read: Love v Commonwealth of Australia; Thoms v Commonwealth of Australia [2020] HCA 3.
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by Paul Cutler | Dec 11, 2019 | Uncategorized
The usual rule in the AAT (and other merit review tribunals) is that the law in force at the time of the tribunal’s decision is applied. This can give rise to some to some difficult issues if there has been a change in the law in between when the application is lodged and when the case is decided. For example I have recently had a case where a change to the skilled occupation list (by imposing a caveat that couldn’t be met) affected my client unfairly.
There is a general presumption (both at common law and in the Legislation Act) that laws can’t act retrospectively if there is an effect on accrued rights. The law is clear that making an application for review in the AAT does give rise to an accrued right to have the application determined in accordance with the law existing at that time (see for example Esber v Commonwealth (1992) 174 CLR 430 at 440-441). So far, so good for my clients – they have an accrued right.
However, there is an exception to that general proposition if there is a clear statutory intention to the contrary. In the context of the Migration Act one of the drafting mechanisms often used to show such an intention is the phrase “not finally determined”. This is actually a defined term in section 5(9) of the Migration Act as follows:
For the purposes of this Act, an application under this Act is finally determined when either:
(a)a decision that has been made in respect of the application is not, or is no longer, subject to any form of review under Part 5 or 7; or
(b)a decision that has been made in respect of the application was subject to some form of review under Part 5 or 7, but the period within which such a review could be instituted has ended without a review having been instituted as prescribed.
The effect of “not finally determined” when it appears, is evidence of a statutory intention for the law in force at the time of the review to apply. The “unfair” (but not illegal) consequences are apparent from a number of cases including Kaur v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2015] FCA 168; Turkish Kebab & Pizza Shop v Minister for Home Affairs [2019] FCCA 188; and Su v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2019] FCCA 1629.
Careful consideration needs to be given to the wording of transitional provisions in these types of cases.
by Paul Cutler | Nov 14, 2019 | Uncategorized
Determining when time limits expire can be more complicated than you might first think.
Recently in Wang [2019] AATA 4163 the AAT had to grapple with the meaning of clause 187.232(1)(bb) (in schedule 2 of the Migration Regulations) which set a time limit for english tests and required that: “the test was conducted in the 3 years immediately before the day on which the application was made”.
Mr Wang did his test on 3 August 2013 and lodged his visa application on 4 August 2016. Was he in time?
The problem is that the term ‘year’ is not defined in either the Act or the Regulations, and none of the calculation of time provisions in the current s.36 of the Acts Interpretation Act provides any guidance. In the absence of any such guidance the Tribunal accepted that “year” meant “calendar year”.
It then applied section 36 of the Acts Interpretation Act which provides that a period of time expressed to “end before a specified day does not include that day”. The tribunal held that for an application lodged 4 August 2016, the required time period to have conducted a language test would have been 3 August 2013 to 3 August 2016. Accordingly, the competent English requirement was met, and the visa application was remitted to the Department for determination according to law.
My standard advice to clients is that if there is ever any doubt about time limits, make sure you err on the side of early!
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