1823149 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application for protection visas made by certain applicants. The dispute concerned whether the applicants met the criteria for the grant of these visas, specifically the requirement that they be in Australia.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicants satisfied the criterion stipulated in s.36(2) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth), which requires an applicant for a protection visa to be a non-citizen in Australia. This criterion is a prerequisite for the grant of such a visa under s.65(1) of the Act.

The Tribunal's reasoning focused on the applicants' physical presence in Australia. Movement records indicated that the applicants had departed Australia in April 2020. The Tribunal notified the applicants of this information and invited them to comment, but no response was received. Based on the available evidence, the Tribunal was satisfied that the applicants were not in Australia. Consequently, they failed to meet the criterion under s.36(2) and were therefore ineligible for protection visas. The Tribunal concluded that it was unnecessary to consider the substantive grounds of their protection claims.

The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the applicants protection visas.