Public Interest Criteria 4020

Do you know that giving fake or bogus document to the Department of Home Affairs (“Department”) as part of your visa application under Public Interest Criteria 4020 is a ground to refuse you a visa and disqualify you in applying for another visa for 3 years?

Common cases litigated in Australian Court includes: tampering the IELTS test result even if the tampering was done by the brother-in-law and not by the visa applicant; providing false work employment letter to have a positive assessment with Trades Recognition Australia. It is the act of tampering or the act of providing false and misleading information to the Department that would warrant refusal of your visa application.

We recently acted on a case before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) on appeal to refuse a remaining relative visa and our client submitted a letter from the Local Civil Registrar proving that his mother died. The record of death was not recorded in the Civil Registry and when a check was made by the Department, it was found out that no record of death was located on the system. This prompted the refusal of our client’s application by Department.

On appeal, the AAT was sympathetic that indeed the mother died as upon being notified of the alleged submission of bogus document, our client applied to have the death of his mother registered. He submitted the permit from the Health Department for burial; letter from the memorial park; letter from the embalmer and 2 persons who attested to the death of the mother. A Certificate of Death was then issued by the Civil Registrar and Philippine Statistics Authority. And yet AAT knocked us on 4020 PIC criteria.

However, we were successful in arguing to the AAT that PIC 4020 be waived as the sponsor suffers from depression. This was not argued by the applicant at first when he submitted his original application with the Department as he did have proper legal advice that PIC 4020 can be waived if there are compelling circumstances affecting Australia or in our case, there are compelling or compassionate reasons affecting the sister of the visa applicant who is an Australian citizen.

This is a case where sometimes you want to give up a hopeless case as almost call cases in Court are against our client’s case, but upon series of interview and analysis, we were able to make a new argument for the first time and back up by medical evidence which was accepted by the Tribunal that if we will not succeed on our argument that our client was not complicit in providing the alleged bogus letter, then it will consider the waiver provision on compelling circumstances under PIC 4020.

This case highlights the importance of getting legal advise when confronted with a legal issue as there are technical and procedural issues that the visa applicant might miss if he has no proper legal advice.

For immigration issues and application, please contact our law office at our office number (02) 96356500.