1715571 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application for a protection visa made by an applicant who was not in Australia. The dispute centred on whether the applicant met the threshold requirement for the grant of such a visa.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicant satisfied the criterion stipulated in section 36(2) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth), which requires an applicant for a protection visa to be a non-citizen in Australia.

The Tribunal reasoned that section 65(1) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) mandates that a visa can only be granted if the prescribed criteria are met. As the applicant was not in Australia, as evidenced by movement records and confirmed by the applicant's failure to respond to the Tribunal's notification, the criterion under section 36(2) was not satisfied. Consequently, the Tribunal found it unnecessary to consider the substantive grounds of the applicant's protection claim. The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the protection visa.