Bencs (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) considered an application for review of a decision concerning a Partner (Temporary) (Class UK) visa, Subclass 820. The applicant sought review of a decision, but the application for review was lodged after the prescribed time limit.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether it had jurisdiction to consider the applicant's review application, given that it was filed out of time. This required the Tribunal to determine the date on which the applicant was deemed to have been notified of the original decision and, consequently, the correct deadline for lodging the review application.

The Tribunal applied section 494C of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), which deems notification of a decision to have occurred on a specific date. In this instance, the Tribunal found that the applicant was taken to have been notified of the decision on 1 February 2023. This established that the prescribed period for lodging an application for review expired on 22 February 2023. As the application was received by the Tribunal on 15 March 2023, it was therefore lodged outside the statutory timeframe.

Consequently, the Tribunal concluded that the application for review was not made in accordance with the relevant legislative requirements, and accordingly, the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter.