Muradi (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application for Partner (Provisional) (Class UF) visas, Subclass 309 (Spouse (Provisional)), made by a group of applicants, one of whom was deceased. The primary dispute concerned whether the visa applicants met Public Interest Criterion (PIC) 4007, which requires applicants to be free from certain diseases or conditions that could impact the community or result in significant costs to Australia. A Medical Officer of the Commonwealth had opined that one of the visa applicants, a child, did not meet PIC 4007(1)(c)(ii)(A) due to a profound disability likely to incur substantial costs to the Australian community.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was to determine the status of the visa applications in light of the death of one of the applicants, and whether the remaining applicants met the requirements of PIC 4007. The Tribunal was required to consider the impact of the child applicant's death on the overall assessment of the visa application, particularly in relation to the delegate's previous decision which had relied on the child's failure to meet PIC 4007 as the reason for the primary and other secondary applicants also failing to meet the visa criteria.

The Tribunal reasoned that following the death of the child applicant, there was no evidence before it that the remaining five visa applicants failed to meet the requirements of PIC 4007. The Tribunal noted that the primary and review applicants had been assessed as being in a genuine and ongoing relationship, and the delegate's refusal had been predicated on the deceased child's inability to meet PIC 4007. Consequently, the Tribunal concluded that the appropriate course of action was to remit the applications for reconsideration by the Minister, with a direction that the five remaining visa applicants meet PIC 4007(1) for the purposes of clause 309.323 of Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994.