Nopia (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered a migration matter involving an applicant seeking review of a decision concerning a Subclass 836 (Carer) visa. The core of the dispute revolved around whether the applicant's application for review was lodged within the prescribed timeframes. The applicant's representative claimed not to have received notifications from the Tribunal, which impacted the ability to meet the deadlines.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether it had jurisdiction to hear the applicant's review application. This question hinged on whether the applicant had been validly notified of the original decision and, consequently, whether the application for review was filed within the statutory time limits prescribed by the relevant legislation.

The Tribunal applied section 494C of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), which deems notification to have occurred on a specific date, 1 November 2017, for the purposes of calculating the review period. Based on this deemed notification, the Tribunal determined that the period for lodging a review application expired on 22 November 2017. As the applicant's review application was received by the Tribunal on 29 November 2017, it was found to be out of time.

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