1725122 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application for protection visas by applicants who had departed Australia. The core of the dispute revolved around the applicants' physical presence in Australia at the time of the decision.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicants met the criterion for a protection visa that they must be a non-citizen in Australia, as stipulated by section 36(2) of the relevant Act. This necessitated an assessment of whether the applicants were physically present within Australia when the Tribunal was considering their application.

The Tribunal's reasoning was based on movement records indicating that the applicants had left Australia in September 2019. The Tribunal communicated this information to the applicants, inviting them to provide comment, but received no response. Consequently, the Tribunal was satisfied that the applicants were not in Australia and therefore did not meet the essential criterion under section 36(2) of the Act. As this criterion was not satisfied, the Tribunal found it unnecessary to consider the substantive grounds of the applicants' claims for protection. The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the protection visas.