Brar v Minister for Immigration

This matter concerned an application for judicial review of a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) that it lacked jurisdiction to review a migration decision. The applicant sought to challenge the AAT's determination that his application for review was lodged out of time.

The central legal issue before the court was whether the AAT had correctly determined that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the applicant's review application because it was filed more than 21 days after the applicant was taken to have been notified of the primary decision. This involved considering the date of notification and the validity of the application lodged with the Tribunal.

The court found that a screenshot of an electronic communication constituted a "document recording an electronic communication" under section 71 of the *Evidence Act 1995* (Cth). This meant that the hearsay rule did not apply to representations within the screenshot concerning the sender, date, time, destination, or addressee of the communication. Consequently, the court was satisfied that the letter containing the primary decision, dated 6 December 2016, was sent on that day to the applicant's authorised recipient. This established that the applicant was required to lodge his application for review by 28 December 2016. The AAT's subsequent letter of 17 January 2017 informed the applicant that his application appeared to be out of time, and invited comments by 31 January 2017. The applicant responded on 28 January 2017, explaining delays due to financial issues, holiday periods, and alleged misinformation from his migration agent, and requested that his application be considered valid. The court ultimately dismissed the application for judicial review.