Ram (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) considered an application for review of a decision to refuse a Visitor (Class FA) Subclass 600 visa. The applicant, Ram, had his visa application refused. The application for review of this refusal was lodged not by Ram himself, but by his specified relative. The Tribunal had invited the applicant to comment on the issue of jurisdiction, but no response was received.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether it had jurisdiction to hear the application for review. Specifically, the Tribunal had to determine whether the application for review had been validly made by a person with standing to do so, given that it was lodged by a specified relative rather than the visa applicant.

The Tribunal reasoned that under the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) and associated regulations, an application for review of a visa refusal must be made by the applicant themselves, or by a person authorised to act on their behalf. In this instance, the specified relative had not demonstrated any such authorisation. The Tribunal noted that the applicant had failed to respond to the invitation to comment on the jurisdictional issue, which further supported the conclusion that the application had not been validly made. Consequently, the Tribunal found that it lacked jurisdiction to proceed with the substantive review of the visa refusal.