ETULLE (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the case of an applicant whose Student (Temporary) (Class TU) visa (Subclass 500) was cancelled by the Department of Home Affairs. The dispute centred on whether the applicant had breached a condition of her visa, leading to its cancellation.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was to determine whether the applicant had complied with condition 8202 of the Migration Regulations 1994. This condition requires a student visa holder to be enrolled in a full-time registered course, maintain enrolment in a course that leads to a qualification at the same or higher level than the one for which the visa was granted, and achieve satisfactory course progress and attendance. The Tribunal had to ascertain if the applicant met these requirements, and if not, whether the cancellation of her visa was justified.

The Tribunal found that the applicant had not been enrolled in a registered course between 2 October 2017 and 2 August 2018, a period of ten months. This non-enrolment constituted a breach of condition 8202(2)(a) of her visa. The Tribunal concluded that the reason for this non-enrolment was the applicant's inability to pay tuition fees, which led to her enrolment being cancelled. Furthermore, the Tribunal was not satisfied that the applicant would be able to meet the tuition fees for a proposed future Master's course, even if her visa cancellation were set aside, due to a lack of corroborating evidence regarding her financial capacity.

Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the decision to cancel the applicant's visa.