Lodging spouse visa application and 8503 condition

Posted by admin on Jan 31, 2013 in blog

Lodging spouse visa application and 8503 condition

I come across lot of situation where person is on tourist visa or some other substantive visa with condition 8503 on it. They come to Australia and get married to Australian Citizen or Permanent Resident. I get frequently asked question whether they can lodge a partner or spouse visa application or not?

The answer to this question is they may be able to lodge a valid partner visa application if condition 8503 is waived but keep in mind that condition 8503 has continuing effect. Meaning that once your current visa expires, condition 8503 will still be there which means you can’t lodge partner visa application. You can request waiver of condition 8503. Read more on waiver at http://www.australianvisaspecialist.com.au/visa-conditions/

Another way around it provided you meet rest of the requirements for spouse visa application

You can make a request for ministerial intervention if you have received a decision by a review tribunal. This is because the minister’s public interest powers require a review tribunal decision to exist before he can intervene. A ‘review tribunal’ means the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT), the Migration Review Tribunal (MRT) or, in certain circumstances, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).

You are also able to seek ministerial intervention if this is your initial request for the minister to intervene and you are currently appealing the review tribunal decision through the courts. However, the minister only intervenes in a relatively small number of cases and you should not discontinue any application for judicial review on the expectation that he will intervene in your case.

At this point of time you should apply for waiver of condition 8503 as the minister has indicated that he does not generally wish to consider cases where it may be open to a person to lodge a valid application for a Partner visa.