Ranatunga (Migration)

This matter concerned an appeal by the applicant, Mr Ranatunga, against the refusal of his Employer Nomination (Permanent) (Class EN) visa, specifically under the temporary residence transition stream of the Subclass 186 visa. The applicant's family members were also applicants. The primary issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicant had demonstrated the required level of English language proficiency at the time of his visa application.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicant met the definition of "competent English" as prescribed by regulation 1.15C of the Migration Regulations 1994, which for applications made on or after 1 July 2017, requires a specified score in an approved English language test or holding a passport from a specified country. The applicant had provided several English language test results, including an IELTS test from September 2014, an IELTS test from April 2018, a PTE Academic test from November 2018, and an IELTS test from July 2019.

The Tribunal considered the legislative instrument IMMI 15/005, which specifies the required scores for various tests to satisfy the definition of competent English. The applicant's provided test results were compared against these requirements. The Tribunal noted that the IELTS test from September 2014 was undertaken before the relevant period for the visa application. The subsequent tests, including the April 2018 IELTS, November 2018 PTE Academic, and July 2019 IELTS, did not meet the minimum scores required in all components for competent English as defined by the regulations and IMMI 15/005. The applicant confirmed these were the only tests he had undertaken.

Consequently, the Tribunal found that the applicant had not satisfied the primary criteria for the grant of the visa due to insufficient English language proficiency. As the primary applicant could not satisfy these criteria, his family members, as secondary applicants, could not satisfy the requirements to be considered members of the family unit of a person who holds a Subclass 186 visa. Therefore, the Tribunal affirmed the decision to refuse the visa applications for all applicants.