Savrimootoo v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection

The case of Savrimootoo v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection concerned an application for leave to appeal the decision of the Federal Circuit Court which had dismissed the applicant’s application for reinstatement of her partner visa. The applicant, a Mauritian national, had arrived in Australia on a student visa which expired in 2007. She had subsequently applied for a New Zealand Family Relationship visa on the basis of a de facto relationship with her then sponsor, a New Zealand national residing in Australia. The application was initially refused but was later remitted for reconsideration by the Migration Review Tribunal. However, the applicant’s relationship with her sponsor ended, and she was no longer in the relationship at the time of the decision. The applicant sought leave to appeal the Federal Circuit Court's decision dismissing her reinstatement application.

The legal issues the court was required to decide included whether the time of the decision criteria applied to the applicant’s partner visa application and whether there was any error in the decision of the Federal Circuit Court. The court had to interpret the relevant legislative provisions and determine whether the applicant’s visa application should be reinstated despite her no longer being in the relationship at the time of the decision. The court also had to consider whether the Federal Circuit Court had erred in dismissing the applicant’s application for leave to appeal.

The court reasoned that there was no error in the decision of the Federal Circuit Court. The court held that the time of decision criteria did not apply to the applicant’s partner visa application. The court found that the relevant provisions should not be construed in a way that would lead to capricious and unjust results. The court emphasised that the provisions were to be construed on the footing that a decision to grant or refuse a visa would be made promptly. The court held that the requirement that the applicant continues to satisfy a single criterion should not be read as engaging with only one of the several requirements that make up that criterion, especially when the temporal element of the relevant requirement is expressed as "continues to be." The court concluded that the Federal Circuit Court had not erred in dismissing the applicant’s application for leave to appeal.

The application for leave to appeal was refused, and the applicant was ordered to pay the Minister's costs. If the parties could not agree on the amount of costs, the matter was to be referred to a Registrar for determination.