Withdrawing a visa application avoids PIC 4020 issues in certain circumstances
PIC 4020(1) has two limbs (emphasis added):
(1) There is no evidence before the Minister that the applicant has given, or caused to be given, to the Minister, an officer, the Tribunal during the review of a Part 5-reviewable decision, a relevant assessing authority or a Medical Officer of the Commonwealth, a bogus document or information that is false or misleading in a material particular in relation to:
(a) the application for the visa; or
(b) a visa that the applicant held in the period of 12 months before the application was made.
This tip focuses only on the first limb: PIC 4020(1)(a).
PIC 4020 is not a visa requirement in an of itself. It only needs to be satisfied where Schedule 2 of the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) for a particular visa subclass contains a provision such as ‘the applicant satisfies public interest criteria… 4020’. The first limb refers to the visa application at hand, namely the visa subclass which requires satisfaction of PIC 4020. It does not refer to previous visa applications.
As a result, for the purposes of the first limb, if a visa applicant…
- provides a bogus document or false or misleading information as part of a visa application (first application) for which PIC 4020 is a requirement
- withdraws the first application
- makes another application for the same visa subclass (second application)
… documents or information provided as part of the first application have no bearing on the second application.
Consequently, in some circumstances where a visa applicant has provided a bogus document or false or misleading information as part of a visa application, a withdrawal of that application could avoid PIC 4020 issues for future applications, as far as the first limb is concerned. If a fresh application is then lodged without that bogus document or false information, the first limb will be no obstacle to that application.
However, withdrawing a visa application might lead to other issues in some cases.
Disclaimer: the above is a mere tentative analysis of a legislative provision. The views there expressed might not reflect the views of the Department, the AAT or the courts. The law or policies might have changed between the writing and reading of this article. The author of this article and Migration Law Updates disclaim any liability for any action (or omission) on their part based on any information provided (or not provided) in this article and are under no obligation to keep the general public nor practitioners informed about the matters discussed in this article or any other matters, or any future changes to any of those matters. It is the responsibility of each practitioner to obtain access to primary sources of law and policy by themselves and to carry out their own research and come to their own conclusions on legislation, case law, policies and more. This article is not intended for the general public.
Sergio Zanotti Stagliorio is a Registered Migration Agent (MARN 1461003). He is the owner of Target Migration in Sydney. He can be reached at sergio@targetmigration.com.au