1813510 (Refugee)

The applicant, a citizen of Vietnam, sought review of a decision by the Minister to refuse to grant a protection visa. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) was asked to determine whether it had jurisdiction to hear the applicant's review application.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicant's application for review had been lodged within the time prescribed by the relevant legislation. Specifically, the Tribunal had to consider if the application was received by the Tribunal within the statutory timeframe for lodging such an application.

The Tribunal found that the application for review was received on 9 May 2018. As this date was outside the period permitted by the relevant legislation for lodging an application for review, the Tribunal concluded that it did not have jurisdiction to consider the merits of the applicant's case. The Tribunal applied the principle that jurisdiction is a threshold matter that must be satisfied before any substantive consideration of an application can occur.

Consequently, the Tribunal made no order on the merits of the protection visa application, as it lacked the power to do so.