1724781 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application for a protection visa made by an applicant who had left Australia. The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicant met the criteria for the grant of a protection visa.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicant satisfied the requirement that they be a non-citizen *in Australia* for the purposes of section 36(2) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth), which is a prescribed criterion for the grant of a protection visa.

The Tribunal reasoned that section 65(1) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) mandates that a visa may only be granted if the prescribed criteria are satisfied. It noted that movement records indicated the applicant had departed Australia in July 2018. The Tribunal communicated this information to the applicant, inviting comment, but received no response. Based on the available evidence, the Tribunal was satisfied that the applicant was not in Australia, and therefore did not meet the criterion under section 36(2). Consequently, the Tribunal found it unnecessary to consider the substantive grounds of the applicant's claim for protection.

The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the applicant a protection visa.