The toughest partner migration appeal we have run, bar none? Armed conflict… a world apart… a pregnancy… refused, and refused again…

Case background:

Our client, from Lebanon, first lodged her own Subclass 309 offshore partner migration application and it was refused. In May 2023 she came to us to lodge an ART appeal for review of the decision, telling us that with armed conflict at home her most urgent need was to enter Australia as soon as possible. Three days after that consultation, working long hours, the lawyer and the team lodged the ART appeal and immediately lodged a Subclass 600 visitor visa application as well. Unfortunately, the visitor visa was not granted.

Several routes to priority listing for the ART appeal

Not only was the country in armed conflict, the client was now pregnant, which made joining her husband in Australia all the more urgent. On those two grounds we asked the ART to expedite the review, but the request went nowhere. The legal team kept looking for other ways to secure priority listing, including approaching Labor MP Chris Bowen, who wrote to the ART recommending the matter be expedited. The reply, again, was that pregnancy is not a ground for expediting a case

We still did not give up. As the pregnancy advanced and the conflict on the ground failed to ease, the client needed certainty about her visa more urgently than ever. This time the legal team attached the government’s SmartTraveller guidance on the situation in Lebanon, supporting the submission that the applicant was not only pregnant but at risk to her life, and came at the matter from a further angle: her child would be an Australian citizen (her husband is a citizen), so being unable to enter Australia in time would harm the interests of a minor Australian citizen. The ART finally accepted the request for priority listing

We did not give up on the visitor visa

Even expedited, the Subclass 309 ART appeal was a distant remedy: a final result was always going to take time. The fastest way to get the client into Australia remained the Subclass 600 visitor visa. The legal team therefore worked both fronts at once, digging out further material and preparing a detailed explanation, and the re-lodged visitor visa was granted in November 2023

309 appeal successful — 309 and 100 granted together

The client then entered Australia on the visitor visa, and with priority listing in place the Subclass 309 ART appeal soon drew a notice to attend a hearing. The applicant and the sponsor answered the ART Member’s concerns about the earlier 309 application face to face, backed by the legal team’s solid supporting material and submissions. On 24 January 2024 the ART appeal succeeded, and the original refusal was remitted to the Department of Home Affairs for reconsideration. After about six months’ wait, the client received the Subclass 309 provisional and Subclass 100 permanent visas at the same time: in short, a two-stage partner migration was granted in a single step, and the client went straight to permanent residence.