1730351 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) considered an application for review of a decision concerning a protection visa. The applicant sought to have the AAT review a decision, but their application was lodged after the prescribed time limit.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether it had jurisdiction to hear the applicant's review, given that the application was made out of time. This required the Tribunal to determine the date on which the applicant was taken to have been notified of the original decision.

The Tribunal applied section 494C of the relevant Act, which deems notification to have occurred in November 2017. Consequently, the prescribed period for lodging an application for review expired in November 2017. As the applicant's application was received by the Tribunal on 3 December 2017, it was not made within the statutory timeframe. The Tribunal concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the matter.