2304502 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) considered an application for review of a decision to refuse a protection visa made by the Department of Home Affairs. The applicant, who is from China, sought to have the refusal decision reviewed by the Tribunal.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether it had jurisdiction to hear the application for review. This question turned on whether the application was lodged within the time prescribed by the relevant legislation, which requires applications for review to be made within 28 days of notification of the refusal decision. The applicant contended that the notification of the refusal decision had been incorrectly filtered into their junk email folder, leading to a late lodgement of the review application.

The Tribunal found that the application for review was received on 29 March 2023, which was more than 28 days after the notification of the refusal decision. The Tribunal held that, as the application was not made within the statutory timeframe, it lacked jurisdiction to consider the merits of the application. The applicant's belief regarding the email filtering did not alter the fact that the application was lodged out of time.

Consequently, the Tribunal determined that it did not have jurisdiction in this matter.