Federal Court: Could it be said that, once a visa application form is first drafted on a particular date, it cannot "thereafter be altered and that its form [is] forever fixed as at that date"? If, while a non-citizen is in the migration zone, the Minister considered an invalid protection visa application to be valid and refused to grant the visa, is the non-citizen barred under s 48A from making further protection visa applications while in the migration zone? Does the s 48A bar apply to non-citizens who are making a new protection visa application as secondary applicants?
The questions to the Federal Court (FCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Could it be said that, once a visa application form is first drafted on a particular date, it cannot "thereafter be altered and that its form [is] forever fixed as at that date"?
Question 2: If, while a non-citizen is in the migration zone, the Minister considered an invalid protection visa application to be valid and refused to grant the visa, is the non-citizen barred under s 48A of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) from making further protection visa applications while in the migration zone?
Question 3: Does the s 48A bar apply to non-citizens who are making a new protection visa application as secondary applicants?
The FCA answered those questions as follows: