Vahora (Migration)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the case of Vahora, an applicant for a Skilled Nominated (Permanent) (Class SN) Subclass 190 visa. The dispute centred on whether the applicant met the primary criteria for the visa, specifically concerning the validity of her skills assessment at the time she was invited to apply. The applicant, who is from India, had obtained a skills assessment as a Software Engineer from the Australian Computing Society on 5 September 2016, which was valid for two years. She lodged her visa application on 20 November 2018, after this assessment had expired.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicant had been assessed by the relevant assessing authority as having skills suitable for her nominated occupation at the time she received her invitation to apply for the visa. Clause 190.212(1) of the Migration Regulations requires that, at the time of invitation, the applicant's skills must have been assessed as suitable by the relevant authority. The applicant argued that because she received an invitation to apply after her initial skills assessment had expired, and subsequently obtained a new assessment, her application should be considered valid.

The Tribunal reasoned that the validity of the skills assessment is a strict requirement that must be met at the precise time of the invitation to apply. The applicant's initial skills assessment expired on 4 September 2018, which was before she lodged her visa application on 20 November 2018. Although she received an invitation on 15 October 2018, the Tribunal found that the skills assessment was no longer valid at that point. The subsequent skills assessment obtained in July 2019 was therefore too late to satisfy the criterion.

Consequently, the Tribunal found that the applicant did not satisfy the primary criteria for the Subclass 190 visa. As a result, the secondary criteria for her husband and son were also not met, as they were not members of a family unit of a person who held the visa. The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the applicants the Skilled Nominated (Permanent) Subclass 190 visas.