1708204 (Migration)

This matter concerned an application for a Partner (Provisional) (Class UF) visa. The review applicant, who was the sponsor, had previously sponsored two other individuals for Partner visas, and in both instances, the relationships had ended shortly after the visas were granted, leading to divorce. Consequently, the sponsor did not meet the sponsorship limitation requirements under regulation 1.20J(1) of the Migration Regulations 1994. The Tribunal was therefore required to determine whether there were compelling circumstances affecting the sponsor that would justify approving the sponsorship despite this limitation.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the circumstances of the current relationship between the sponsor and the visa applicant constituted "compelling circumstances" for the purposes of regulation 1.20J(1). This regulation imposes a limit on the number of people an individual can sponsor for a Partner visa and a minimum time that must elapse between sponsorships. The Tribunal noted that the mere existence of a genuine and continuing relationship, while a prerequisite for the visa itself, could not, in isolation, constitute compelling circumstances for waiving the sponsorship limitation, as this would render the limitation ineffective.

In its reasoning, the Tribunal considered the limited time the parties had physically spent together in a domestic relationship, noting they met in late 2014 and commenced their relationship in early 2015. The visa applicant was in immigration detention at the time and left Australia shortly thereafter. While the sponsor had travelled to China to see the visa applicant, the Tribunal found the overall time spent together to be very limited. Despite witness statements supporting the genuineness of the relationship, the Tribunal was not satisfied that these circumstances, when taken as a whole, presented compelling reasons to override the sponsorship limitation. The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the visa.