Our Client Succeeds in the Federal Circuit Court
Recently, we represented a client in his dispute with the Immigration Department. The client came to us because his permanent resident visa had been cancelled by the Department.
The background of this case is that whenever someone applies for an Australian visa, they are asked to answer several questions in the visa application form. It goes without saying that there is an obligation to give correct answers.
The Immigration Department then assesses the visa application and based on the answers they either grant a visa or they refuse the application. In addition, the Department runs a robust visa integrity program, which basically means that even if they grant a visa, they may later check if the answers in the visa application were correct.
If the answers were not correct, then the Department may cancel the visa. What a lot of people don’t realise is that it doesn’t matter if the visa applicant unintentionally or unknowingly provides incorrect answers. As long as the answer is incorrect, the visa can be cancelled.
In our client’s case, some 2 years after the Department had granted a permanent resident visa, they came back and said that they cancel the visa because our client provided incorrect answers in the visa application form.
Our client has always maintained that the answers he provided were correct. He provided detailed evidence to support his position. Nonetheless, the Department, and later the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, found against our client. We then filed an appeal with the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, and argued that our client’s visa was wrongly cancelled, without any evidence substantiating that the answers he gave were incorrect. The Court has recently delivered its judgment and agreed with our client’s position. The Court found extreme illogicality in the decision to cancel the visa.