Section 57 Natural Justice letter from the Department of Home Affairs

Immigration News

What is Section 57 Natural Justice?

Section 57 of the Migration Act 1958 (‘the Act’) requires the Department of Home Affairs to provide you with an opportunity to comment and present information. Natural Justice is the right to a fair and impartial procedure that is free from bias, in layman terms is called procedural fairness. This is the stage at which the Department of Home Affairs invites you to provide additional information and comments before making a decision on your visa application.

When will you receive Natural Justice?

This can happen if the Department discovers or has reasonable grounds to suspect that you provided false or misleading information, or if you do not appear to meet some criteria for the visa you applied for based on the information provided.

When do you need to give information?

In most cases, you will be given twenty-eight (28) days to respond and provide new information or documents. Time is of the essence, and you must respond to the issue raised in a timely manner. Your visa application will be refused otherwise.

How can we help?

No Borders Migration Law have successfully assisted many visa applicants respond to Natural Justice letters and have their visas granted. We will review the Natural Justice letter in detail and provide you specific advice on what your next steps should be. If the Departments claims are wrong, we will prepare written submissions with supporting evidence proving that their assessment is incorrect. In other cases, we may advise you to withdraw the visa application to avoid being subject to a Section 48 bar, or a exclusion period.

Recent success case at NB Migration Law

Recently, we had a client who received a Natural Justice letter from the Department stating that she had provided a bogus document – false birth certificate. A bogus document is a document that looks as though it has been issued fraudulently or has been altered in an unauthorised way or has been obtained under false pretences. Our client claims that she had no idea the birth certificate was a false document as it was issued many years ago. We explained to the Department our client’s genuine intention and efforts in having the document translated and notarised before submitting to the Department, she was not aware that the birth certificate was not a genuine document, and it was merely an innocent mistake. We further explained to the department how her Australian family members would be impacted if her visa was not granted.

Please do not take this Natural Justice letter lightly. It is important that you fully comprehend the issues raised by the Department and respond accordingly.