Australian Immigration Daily News

How long can you sit on your rights?

No, for all the “wise persons” who are reading this, the answer to that question is not: “It depends on how comfortable the chair is”!

There is actually a serious, consequential issue here, one that is important to consider for anyone who has not been successful in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal or who is advising someone who has lost her/his case in the Tribunal and is considering whether to take the case to the Federal Circuit Court for judicial review.

I am in the middle of a partner migration case, where it is important that the child of the relationship is deemed an Australian citizen.

This is despite the fact that the Australian child has already been issued with an Australian passport, and already holds an Australian Citizenship by Descent certificate.

The child's father is an Australian citizen and is also the holder of an Australian passport.

Yeah-nah, Nah-yeah!

What?

Is it possible for 2 objects to occupy the same space at the same time?

SBS News reports that a migration agent, Chetan Meshru, and his wife, Divya Gowda,a marriage celebrant, have been found guilty of 66 separate charges involving visa fraud after a two-week trial in the Brisbane District Court.

According to SBS, the scheme involved paying Australian women to participate in sham marriage ceremonies with men of Indian nationality who wanted to obtain partner visas to remain in Australia. The men also reportedly paid substantial fees to the migration agent.

The report quotes the Crown Prosecutor, Greg Lynham, as saying: "There was no courtship, there's no dating, there's no getting to know each other...It's simply rock up to the townhouse, sign some forms...and then the parties go their separate ways...."

How can you tell if your client has not been given a fair hearing by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal?

Or to put the question in “lawyer’s terms”, how can you tell if the Tribunal member has been guilty of bias, and has therefore fallen into jurisdictional error, so you can get the case sent back to the Tribunal for another, hopefully fairer, hearing?

Well, like a lot of things in life, it may all be a matter of degree – sometimes bias can smack you in the face like a bucket of ice water, and sometimes it may be more difficult to identify.