1618436 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application for protection visas by applicants who had departed Australia. The dispute centred on whether the applicants met the eligibility criteria for a protection visa, specifically concerning their physical presence in Australia at the time of the decision.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicants satisfied the criterion that they be a non-citizen in Australia, as stipulated by section 36(2) of the relevant Act, for the grant of a protection visa. This required the Tribunal to determine the applicants' location at the time of the decision-making process.

The Tribunal reasoned that under section 65(1) of the Act, a visa can only be granted if prescribed criteria are met. It found, based on movement records and the applicants' representatives' advice that they had lost contact with their clients, that the applicants had departed Australia in June 2019 and were therefore not physically present in Australia. Consequently, the Tribunal concluded that the applicants did not satisfy the criterion under section 36(2) and could not be granted protection visas. As this jurisdictional requirement was not met, the Tribunal deemed it unnecessary to consider the substantive claims for protection. The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the protection visas.