The following has been received by the MRT-RRT:

I invite you to attend an Open Day at the Migration Review Tribunal as part of National Law Week 2014. National Law Week is an annual event designed to promote public understanding of the law and its role in society as well as raise awareness in the community about how to access legal services and advice. The theme for Law Week is “law and justice in your community”. 

The Migration Review Tribunal reviews a wide range of Department of Immigration and Citizenship decisions, including those relating to partner, family, business, skilled and student visas.  As part of National Law Week, the Migration Review Tribunal will hold information sessions in our offices in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.  

Although DIBP succeeded in its appeal to the Federal Court despite the fact that DIBP used inconsistent means of communications to the detriment of the applicant, the court has expressed concerns over a visa refusal for a trivial oversight.

According to the case, on the records, DIBP had the applicant’s old address, current address and email contact details. DIBP was generally corresponding with the applicant by email except when it came to the refusal decision which it sent to the applicant's old address. DIBP was even aware that the applicant did not receive DIBPs decision letter as it was returned undelivered. The applicant only found out about the decision months later and by then too late for an MRT review.

In the applicant's appeal to the Federal Circuit Court, the court found in favour of the applicant stating,“the applicant did not receive notification of the refusal of her visa application until she had asked for it some months after it had originally been sent, even though the Department had corresponded with her by email and was aware that the refusal letter had been returned undelivered. It knew that she had not received notification and knew how to contact her but did not.”

However, DIBP appealed to the the Federal Court and succeeded. Justice Robert Buchanan said he had to apply the law and find for the government, not for student Jung Eun Kim, but he suggested the “clerical shortcoming” affecting her visa could have been fixed without the need for litigation.

“This case has some unsettling features...It is hard to understand why any clerical shortcoming could not be addressed and corrected without the need for legal proceedings... If, in fact, (Ms Kim) satisfied all the requirements for a student visa, save for inadvertently failing to provide the physical evidence of the overseas student health cover which she had obtained from Medibank at a premium of $1073.06, it is difficult to see why some appropriate administrative procedure could not have been found to overcome any administrative or technical difficulty which stood in her way.” ” Justice Buchanan said in his decision last week.

...

MA has made several attempts in the recent past to alert its members about pdtraining’s offer of paying referral commissions to RMAs through a debit card option.  

The concerns of MA was also brought to the attention of pdtraining.  

A tax and legal advice from Sydney Accredited Specialist tax lawyer, David Garde of Brown Wright Stein, was also made available to MA members to keep them informed and to restrain them from using pdtraining’s GST DEFEASANCE SCHEME.  Following our proactive approach, even MIA had withdrawn its endorsement of pdtraining’s offer and stopped endorsing pdtraining as their sponsor.  This was evident from MIA’s ‘Member Benefits and Discounts Newsletter ’.  Though MIA did not publicly admit the error, MIA has stopped promoting this deal which was deemed dangerous for its members and other RMAs working in the industry.

Natalie O'Brien has published this article today:

http://m.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/secret-blacklist-of-immigration-lawyers-20140503-37oyw.html

You may recall that Migration Alliance raised the issue of the A and B list of migration agents on March 12, 2014. In that article I had been in communication with the DIBP.  To read that article including the terrible information about Lists A and B of migration agents please click here:

The Migration Alliance is wondering whether OMARA is carrying out it's decisions in light of the decision of the AAT in the case of Asif Syed. The AAT found that an applicant for registration as a migration agent requires an IELTS test band score of 7 in each band but this can be just one of the factors which MARA must consider.

The Migration Alliance wants to know whether MARA is ignoring this instruction by still insisting that an English language proficiency test such as IELTS can only be considered as proof of an applicant’s English language proficiency.

If new applicants would like to create a letter to the Office of the MARA the following paragraph might be added (the paragraph is a creation of Michael Suss RMA):