Divorced Women in Indonesia as a Particular Social Group

What did the Tribunal decide in 2216519 [2025] ARTA 1815?

A single divorced woman in Indonesia can be a member of a particular social group for the purposes of the refugee criterion in section 36(2)(a) of the Migration Act 1958. In 2216519 (Refugee) [2025] ARTA 1815, decided on 9 July 2025 at Brisbane, the Administrative Review Tribunal set aside a decision refusing a protection visa and remitted the application to the Department for reconsideration with the direction that the applicant meets section 36(2)(a).

The applicant was an Indonesian national who had applied for a protection visa on 21 February 2020. A delegate of the Minister refused the visa on 10 November 2022 under section 65 of the Act. The decision was made on the papers. The applicant had not responded to an invitation to provide further information, and the delegate found the claims in the written application to be generic, unsubstantiated and not credible.

The review took two hearings, on 30 April 2025 and 21 May 2025, and produced an outcome that had almost nothing to do with the claims in the original application. That is the first reason this decision repays close reading. The claims that succeeded were not the claims that were refused.

Who was the applicant and what was the original claim?

The applicant was an Indonesian citizen, born in Jakarta, of Chinese Indonesian ethnicity and Buddhist religion. She entered Australia in December 2019 on a visitor visa and applied for a protection visa about two months later. Applying for protection from onshore while holding a visitor visa is common and lawful, as our note on applying for a Subclass 866 Protection visa on a tourist visa explains, and the short gap between arrival and lodgement was never treated as a problem in this case.

The protection visa application, as lodged, advanced a claim based on sexual orientation. It said she could not return to Indonesia because her life would not be joyful, her parents could not accept her circumstances and behaviour, and that Indonesian federal law does not recognise LGBT people. Claims of that kind are recognised in Australian law and are dealt with on our LGBTI protection visa page. The difficulty here was not the category of claim. It was that the claim was not hers.

At the hearing the applicant told the Tribunal she had not prepared that application. Her then husband had prepared it. She spoke little English at the time and did not know what was in it. When the Tribunal member read the content of the application to her, she became visibly distressed, because she was unaware that her ex husband had claimed on her behalf that she was a member of the LGBTIQ+ community. She had been separated from him for two years and divorced from him in 2024.

The claims that the Tribunal ultimately assessed were different. She was raised from birth by her maternal grandmother in East Kalimantan after her parents separated. She has no relationship with either parent. Her grandmother, who was her only real family support, died. She left school early to care for her grandmother after a stroke. Her marriage in 2018 was arranged by that grandmother, who worried about who would care for her once she was gone. Her husband was unfaithful, used her money to support a relationship with another woman, was physically abusive, and the couple separated and divorced. Her only other relative in Indonesia is a paternal uncle in Jakarta with whom she has had very limited contact.

Why did the delegate refuse the protection visa?

The delegate refused the visa because the claims as written lacked detail and the applicant did not respond to an invitation under section 56 of the Act to provide more. The delegate's reasons, quoted in the decision, record that the claims did not include specific details, dates, locations or names of any key events, that there was no evidence beyond the applicant's own limited written assertions, and that the combination of a thin application and silence in response to the section 56 letter raised concerns that the claims were not credible. The applicant was not invited to an interview, and she provided no supporting documents to the Department beyond her passport and biometric identification.

That refusal is a useful illustration of how a paper refusal works. A finding that claims are not credible, made without an interview and on the strength of an unanswered letter, is a finding about a document. It is not a finding about a person who has never been heard. This is precisely why review matters, and why the protection visa refusal stage so often turns on evidence that was never before the Department. Our guide to what happens at Administrative Review Tribunal review after a refusal sets out how the Tribunal hearing differs from the Department's process.

What is the refugee criterion in section 36(2)(a)?

Section 36(2)(a) provides that a criterion for a protection visa is that the applicant is a non citizen in Australia in respect of whom the Minister is satisfied Australia has protection obligations because the person is a refugee. The criteria for the visa are set out in section 36 of the Act and in Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994, and our overview of applying for a protection visa in Australia covers how the application itself is made. An applicant must meet one of the alternative criteria in section 36(2)(a), (aa), (b) or (c).

A person is a refugee under section 5H(1)(a) if, having a nationality, they are outside their country of nationality and, owing to a well-founded fear of persecution, are unable or unwilling to avail themselves of that country's protection. A person without a nationality is a refugee under section 5H(1)(b) if they are outside their country of former habitual residence and, owing to a well-founded fear of persecution, are unable or unwilling to return.

If a person does not meet the refugee criterion, they may still meet the complementary protection criterion in section 36(2)(aa), which asks whether there are substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of removal, there is a real risk the person will suffer significant harm. Significant harm is defined exhaustively in section 36(2A). The complementary protection test operates independently of the refugee test, and in this case it was never reached.

What does section 5J require before a fear is well founded?

Section 5J(1) sets out three cumulative elements. The person must fear being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. There must be a real chance that, if returned, the person would be persecuted for one or more of those reasons. And the real chance of persecution must relate to all areas of the receiving country.

Three further provisions cut the claim down. Section 5J(2) removes a well-founded fear where effective protection measures are available, with section 5LA defining effective protection. Section 5J(3) removes it where the person could take reasonable steps to modify their behaviour, but not where that modification would conflict with a characteristic fundamental to identity or conscience, or conceal an innate or immutable characteristic. Section 5J(4) requires that the relevant reason be the essential and significant reason for the persecution, that the persecution involve serious harm, and that it involve systematic and discriminatory conduct.

Section 5J(5) lists instances of serious harm. They include a threat to life or liberty, significant physical harassment, significant physical ill treatment, significant economic hardship that threatens the person's capacity to subsist, denial of access to basic services where the denial threatens the capacity to subsist, and denial of capacity to earn a livelihood of any kind where the denial threatens the capacity to subsist.

The real chance threshold comes from Chan Yee Kin v MIEA (1989) 169 CLR 379. A real chance is one that is not remote or insubstantial or a far fetched possibility. An applicant may have a well-founded fear even though the possibility of the persecution occurring is well below fifty percent. The Tribunal applied that standard expressly.

What is a particular social group under section 5L?

Section 5L treats a person as a member of a particular social group, other than the person's family, if a characteristic is shared by each member of the group, the person shares or is perceived to share that characteristic, and any of three things applies: the characteristic is innate or immutable, it is so fundamental to a member's identity or conscience that the member should not be forced to renounce it, or it distinguishes the group from society. There is a fourth requirement. Under section 5L(d), the characteristic cannot be a fear of persecution.

Section 5K deals separately with membership of a particular social group consisting of family. It was not the pathway here.

The group the Tribunal accepted was "single, divorced women in Indonesia". That formulation matters. It is not "women in Indonesia", which would be too broad to distinguish the group in the way section 5L contemplates in many contexts, and it is not defined by the harm feared, which section 5L(d) forbids. It is defined by marital and social status within a specific society, and the country information was then used to show what that status means in practice.

Why did the Tribunal accept single divorced women in Indonesia as a particular social group?

The Tribunal accepted the group because the country information established that divorced and single women in Indonesia are treated differently by society in ways that go beyond the harm feared. The Tribunal was satisfied there was a real chance the applicant would suffer serious harm for reason of her membership of a particular social group being a single divorced woman in Indonesia, and that the chance was not remote or insubstantial or a far fetched possibility.

The building blocks were specific. The Tribunal accepted that the applicant is an Indonesian national and that Indonesia is her receiving country, that she married in Indonesia, travelled to Australia with her then husband and is now divorced, and that she has limited family in Indonesia to rely on for support of any kind, no relationship with her biological parents, and that the maternal grandmother who raised her had died. It accepted that although she had worked in a retail store in Indonesia and works in Australia, it would be more difficult for her to obtain employment in Indonesia earning enough to fully support herself and live safely as a single woman, and that having left school early she has limited education to fall back on. It accepted she is from Kalimantan and that her only relative is an uncle in Jakarta with whom she has a very limited relationship, and that she may face scrutiny or threats of harm from her ex husband's family, who still reside in her home area and see her as at fault for the divorce.

The Tribunal then said it had considered the claims individually and cumulatively, and found her to be a vulnerable person if returned in the reasonably foreseeable future. The vulnerability was the product of cumulative issues: her status as a single young woman, divorce, no wealth, no family support or network, no prospects of economic advancement because of limited education, and being a possible target of threats, harassment or harm from her former husband's family.

How did the Tribunal deal with the false claims in the original application?

The Tribunal accepted the applicant's explanation that her ex husband created the fictitious sexuality claims and did not engage with them at all. The reasons say the applicant vehemently denied the claims, that the Tribunal accepted her description of how the initial protection visa application came to be made at the hands of her ex husband, and that as such the Tribunal had not engaged with the claims in their entirety.

The Tribunal did not treat the abandoned claims as a lie told by the applicant. It treated them as claims that were never hers.

Does a fabricated claim in an earlier application destroy credibility?

No. A claim in an earlier application does not automatically destroy credibility where the decision maker accepts that the applicant did not make it and did not know about it. The Tribunal's approach in this case shows how that assessment is done.

The Tribunal set out the framework first. In determining whether an applicant engages protection obligations it is necessary to make findings of fact on relevant matters, which may involve assessing credibility. The Tribunal had regard to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status and accepted that the benefit of the doubt should be given to asylum seekers who are generally credible but unable to substantiate all of their claims. It also recorded the limits. The Tribunal is not required to accept uncritically any or all of the allegations made by an applicant, and it does not require rebutting evidence before it can find that a particular factual assertion has not been made out.

What changed the outcome was oral evidence. The applicant appeared, gave evidence about how the application was prepared, and reacted to hearing its contents for the first time. The Tribunal recorded that she became visibly distressed. That reaction, and the consistency of her account, did the work that a written response to the section 56 letter could never have done.

The practical lesson applies well beyond this case. Where an application was prepared by a spouse, a family member or anyone other than the applicant, the discrepancy should be raised and explained squarely, early, and with whatever corroboration exists. It should not be left for the decision maker to discover. If the claims in your lodged application do not match your circumstances, raise it with a protection visa lawyer before the hearing, not at it.

What country information did the Tribunal rely on?

The Tribunal relied on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Country Information Report on Indonesia. The same report is the starting point for most Indonesian protection claims, including the student claims discussed in our note on Indonesian students and the Subclass 866 Protection visa. Under Ministerial Direction No. 84, made under section 499 of the Act, the Tribunal took account of the Refugee Law Guidelines and Complementary Protection Guidelines prepared by the Department of Home Affairs, and country information assessments prepared by DFAT expressly for protection status determination purposes, to the extent they were relevant.

On divorced and single women, the reasons record that the DFAT report notes single and divorced women may be subject to sexual harassment especially because of divorce. It notes that Jakarta offers more independence for women but that this is mitigated by their lack of work connections in Jakarta and their ability to obtain financial support from family. The Tribunal noted that both of those mitigating points were raised with the applicant and her witness, and that financial support and work connections are not available to her in Jakarta. The report describes Indonesia as still very much a patriarchal society where women without husbands have less social access, meaning they are not invited to events, which leads to isolation, loneliness and fewer economic opportunities. The report's own conclusion, quoted in the decision, is that it is possible but difficult to live as a single person, that because of this difficulty and potential stigma many women choose not to leave abusive marriages, that choosing to live a single lifestyle is very uncommon, and that DFAT assesses single women experience a moderate risk of societal discrimination.

The Tribunal also considered material on human trafficking. It referred to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime acknowledging that Indonesia is vulnerable to trafficking of persons, particularly women and young girls, for forced labour, sexual slavery and prostitution both within the country and across its borders. The reasons record that traffickers target young, vulnerable women with low education, limited family networks, poor economic conditions and job opportunities, with the lure of high salaries and a new life.

What counted as serious harm in this case?

The Tribunal found the serious harm constituted significant physical ill treatment and significant economic hardship threatening the applicant's capacity to subsist, together with a denial of capacity to earn a livelihood of any kind which threatens her capacity to subsist. Those are instances in section 5J(5)(c), (d) and (f).

The reasons then made the connection between economic destitution and exploitation explicit. When considering the point about capacity to earn a livelihood of any kind, the Tribunal observed that many women in Indonesia in dire circumstances are forced by matter of desperation to engage in prostitution and may fall into the hands of human traffickers.

Serious harm under section 5J(5) is not limited to violence. Economic harm qualifies where it threatens the capacity to subsist, and the risk created by destitution can itself be part of the harm.

How did the Tribunal apply the all areas requirement in section 5J(1)(c)?

The Tribunal applied section 5J(1)(c) by asking whether the applicant could safely relocate to Jakarta and finding that she could not. Under section 5J(1)(c) the real chance of persecution must relate to all areas of the receiving country. The Tribunal cited FCS17 v Minister for Home Affairs (2020) 276 FCR 644, where the Full Federal Court held that a reference to all areas of a receiving country means all areas where there is safe human habitation and to which safe access is lawfully possible, and that areas which are unsafe or physically uninhabitable or so inhospitable that a person would be exposed to a likely inability to find food, shelter or work are not included within the areas of a receiving country.

Applying that, the Tribunal found that for a single, divorced woman with no family support or economic support and a low level of education, Jakarta is a moderate risk of societal discrimination along with sexual harassment and predatory behaviour towards a young single woman with no family ties. It found that moderate level of risk indicative of the whole of Indonesia, that the essential and significant reason for the harm is membership of the particular social group, and that the harm therefore related to all areas of the receiving country.

Why was effective state protection not available under sections 5J(2) and 5LA?

The Tribunal found the state was unable to provide effective protection measures because the types of harm the applicant is at real chance of suffering are implicit in Indonesian culture. Section 5J(2) provides that a person does not have a well-founded fear of persecution if effective protection measures are available in a receiving country. Section 5LA(1) provides that effective protection measures are available if protection against persecution could be provided by the relevant State, or by a party or organisation including an international organisation that controls the State or a substantial part of its territory, and that State, party or organisation is willing and able to offer such protection.

The reasons accepted that the applicant could go to the police if she felt unsafe as a single woman and seek protection. The difficulty was that her circumstances are on a social and economic level to which the state would be unable to provide assistance or protection. The Tribunal described these as the subtleties of daily life: the difficulty getting a well paying job, finding a suitably safe place to rent on a limited single income, and the threat as a divorced single woman. The state or any other organisation or authority cannot protect her from these individual and cumulative threats of discrimination which when considered in their totality make life for the applicant in Indonesia increasingly unbearable and threaten her ability to subsist.

Why could the applicant not be expected to live discreetly?

The Tribunal found that any modification of the applicant's behaviour in Indonesia would conflict with a characteristic fundamental to her identity or conscience, conceal an innate or immutable characteristic, or alter her family identity or conceal who she is by her name and family of origin. She therefore could not be required to take steps to modify her behaviour, such as returning to Indonesia and living discreetly, for instance by not telling people she is single or divorced, and has no family network or economic backing, to avoid feared persecution under section 5J(3).

Section 5J(3) only removes a well-founded fear where the modification is reasonable and does not require the person to conceal something fundamental or immutable. Marital status, family of origin and name are not things a person can be asked to hide.

Did the applicant's divorce in Australia count as conduct engaged in to strengthen her claim?

No. The Tribunal found the applicant had not undertaken any actions in bad faith to contrive to strengthen her claim. The point arises because her circumstances changed after she left Indonesia. She had not suffered harm while living in Indonesia, because she had her grandmother as her family network, a home to live in and a job, and she was a single woman but about to be married and not divorced. Her circumstances since leaving changed in that she has become divorced, is a single woman, and the home she previously resided in with her grandmother is no longer available to her.

The Tribunal did not consider that divorcing and being a single woman were actions taken deliberately or in bad faith to invoke a fear of persecution in her home country. The reasons cite the rule as requiring evidence of conduct in Australia contrived to strengthen a claim to be a refugee to be disregarded from the assessment of well-founded fear where the evidence is supportive of the claim, and cite Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZJGV (2009) 238 CLR 642.

A drafting point is worth noting. The reasons refer to section 91R(3) of the Act. Section 91R was repealed with effect from 16 December 2014, and for applications made after that date the equivalent provision is section 5J(6), which is extracted in the attachment to the decision itself. Section 5J(6) provides that any conduct engaged in by the person in Australia is to be disregarded unless the person satisfies the Minister that the person engaged in the conduct otherwise than for the purpose of strengthening the person's claim to be a refugee. The two provisions are in materially the same terms and the reasoning is unaffected, but section 5J(6) is the provision that applies to an application lodged in 2020.

What did the witness evidence add?

The witness evidence supplied the independent confirmation that the written application had never contained. The applicant's paternal uncle gave oral evidence by telephone at the resumed hearing on 21 May 2025. He confirmed that he has a good relationship with the applicant's father, who now lives in Jakarta, that he does not really know the applicant and has not had real contact with her since her parents divorced and she went to live with her maternal grandmother, and that he last saw her in 2016.

He confirmed the core facts. He knew the grandmother had died, that the applicant had married, moved to Australia and was now divorced because her husband had cheated on her, lied to her and took her money. He said he thought it would be unsafe for her to return to her former hometown, as she has no one to look after her there and her ex husband's family are there and could be a threat to her if they knew she was living there again. Asked whether she could come and stay with him and his family in Jakarta, he said this would not be possible as he already has the responsibility of supporting his wife and children, that she would have to live alone and that this is not safe. He also said he thought it would be very difficult for her as a single, divorced woman to obtain appropriate employment to earn enough money to live safely on her own, as this is unusual for women to do in Indonesia.

That evidence matched the DFAT material on work connections and family financial support, which is exactly why it carried weight. A witness who confirms the two specific mitigating factors identified in the country information are absent is far more useful than a witness who gives a general character reference. Preparing witnesses to address the country information, rather than to praise the applicant, is one of the things that separates a prepared review from an unprepared one. The same principle applies at the Department stage, as our guide to the protection visa interview explains.

Which claims did the Tribunal reject?

The Tribunal did not accept that the applicant may face discrimination or harm because of her ethnic Chinese Indonesian background or because she is a Buddhist. Both claims failed on the country information.

On ethnicity, the reasons record that Indonesians of Chinese descent comprise approximately 1.6 percent of the total Indonesian population. DFAT reports there is a well established Chinese Indonesian community, and many people whose families have long since immigrated to Indonesia may not identify as Chinese or speak the language. There is still a leftover layer of discrimination from the 1998 conflicts involving measures implemented by the then President Suharto's New Order regime, which demanded that citizens had Indonesian names and banned Chinese language newspapers and events, and which resulted in violence and looting targeting ethnic Chinese Indonesian families and businesses. Since then, successive governments have worked to remove those layers of discrimination, Chinese Lunar New Year may again be celebrated, Chinese newspapers are available and events occur peacefully. DFAT currently assesses threats of harm to Chinese Indonesians as a low risk of societal violence and a moderate risk of low level societal discrimination, and DFAT is not aware of official discrimination against Chinese Indonesians.

On religion, the reasons record that not every religion is legally recognised in Indonesia. According to the law, religions must have a prophet, a holy book, a deity and international recognition, and Indonesia recognises six official faiths that meet that definition: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Buddhism is one of the six, and the majority of ethnically Chinese Indonesians are also Buddhists.

This part of the decision is worth sitting with. Two claims that sound strong in the abstract, ethnicity and religion, failed, and a claim about marital and economic status succeeded. Protection claims are decided on current country information about the specific risk, not on the general reputation of a category of claim. If you are considering a claim based on faith, our page on religious persecution protection visas explains what the test actually requires.

What does a remittal actually mean for the applicant?

A remittal is not a grant. The Tribunal set aside the decision under review and remitted the application to the Department for reconsideration with the direction that the applicant meets section 36(2)(a) of the Migration Act.

What that direction settles is the refugee criterion. The Department must reconsider the application on the basis that the applicant is a person in respect of whom Australia has protection obligations under section 36(2)(a). What it does not settle is everything else. The remaining criteria for the grant of a Subclass 866 Protection visa, including identity, health, character and the public interest criteria, remain to be assessed by the Department. So does section 501 of the Act.

The Tribunal also recorded two further findings that were needed to get there. It was satisfied the applicant does not have a right to enter and reside in a third country and meets section 36(3) of the Act. And because the refugee criterion was met, it did not consider the complementary protection criterion in section 36(2)(aa) at all. Complementary protection is an alternative, not an addition. Once section 36(2)(a) is satisfied, there is nothing left for it to do.

Our Subclass 866 Protection visa page sets out the full criteria, and the complete guide to the Subclass 866 Protection visa walks through the application process from lodgement.

What this decision does not decide

This decision does not create a rule that divorced Indonesian women qualify for protection visas. Tribunal decisions are made on the facts of the individual case, are not binding on other decision makers, and each application is assessed on its own evidence and on the country information current at the time.

Read the findings closely and the point becomes obvious. The Tribunal did not accept that being a divorced woman in Indonesia is, without more, enough. It accepted a cumulative set of facts: no parents, a dead grandmother, one uncle who cannot take her in, no family network, no wealth, limited education from leaving school early, limited employment prospects, origin in Kalimantan rather than Jakarta, and a hostile former husband's family in her home area. Remove several of those and the analysis changes. A divorced woman with a supportive family in Jakarta, savings and a professional qualification is in a materially different position, and the DFAT material on work connections and family financial support says so directly.

These claims are difficult, fact specific and evidence heavy. The country information that helped this applicant also contains the mitigating factors that will defeat other applicants, and the claim succeeded only because those factors were squarely put to the applicant and her witness and answered.

What does the reinstatement application show about missing a Tribunal hearing?

It shows that missing a hearing is recoverable but not free. The matter was initially set down for hearing on 10 March 2025. The applicant did not attend and the matter was dismissed with a 28 day reinstatement period. She was notified of the decision in writing by email, and applied for reinstatement on 16 April 2025, stating she had been unwell and furnishing a medical certificate. The hearing was relisted for 30 April 2025, which she attended.

The practical points are clear from that sequence. Notification is by email, so the address held by the Tribunal has to be one that is actually monitored. There is a fixed window to apply for reinstatement, and it runs from the dismissal. Supporting evidence for the non attendance, such as a medical certificate, should accompany the reinstatement application rather than follow it. The delay cost this applicant close to two months.

When should documents be sent to the Administrative Review Tribunal?

Documents should be sent well before the hearing, not on the morning of it. In this case the applicant provided a written statement and photographs of her grandmother, along with copies of her divorce certificate, household registration certificate and passport. These documents were submitted to the Tribunal early on the morning of the hearing date and had not been processed at the time of the hearing. They were not viewed by the member until after the hearing.

The Tribunal recorded that the written statement did not contain any new material not covered during the hearing, so nothing was lost. That was luck, not process. A document that arrives on the morning of a hearing may not reach the decision maker in time to be put to the applicant, tested, or relied on, and a document the member cannot ask about is a document that cannot do its job. Anything that matters should be lodged in time for it to be read, indexed and raised at the hearing.

What does this decision mean for Indonesian protection visa applicants?

Indonesian protection claims are decided on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Country Information Report on Indonesia, and that report cuts both ways. The same document that records a moderate risk of societal discrimination for single women also says that Jakarta offers more independence for women, and that the difficulty is mitigated where a woman has work connections in Jakarta or can obtain financial support from family. An Indonesian applicant who cannot answer those two points will struggle. An Indonesian applicant who can, as this applicant did through her own evidence and her uncle's, is in a materially stronger position.

Nationality does not decide a protection claim, and neither does the category of claim. Ethnicity and religion failed here on the country information while marital and economic status succeeded. If your protection visa has been refused, the Administrative Review Tribunal guide for Subclass 866 Protection visa refusals sets out how review works, and review rights for other visa types are set out on our visa refusals page. Where the Tribunal affirms a refusal, the next step is not a further merits review but judicial review in the Federal Circuit and Family Court, which is limited to jurisdictional error. The deadline at each stage is short and strictly applied, so the date the decision was notified matters more than the strength of the argument.

What are the practical lessons from 2216519 [2025] ARTA 1815?

The claims that win are often not the claims that were lodged. The applicant's protection visa application advanced a sexuality claim she had never made. The claim that succeeded was about marital status, family network, education and economic survival, and it was built almost entirely from evidence given at two hearings in 2025 for an application lodged in 2020.

Five things did the work. Oral evidence, because the applicant appeared and explained how the application came to be made. A witness, because the uncle confirmed the two mitigating factors in the country information were absent in her case. Country information, read closely enough to identify what DFAT actually says about single and divorced women. Correct framing of the social group, defined by status rather than by the harm feared, so that section 5L(d) was not engaged. And cumulative assessment, because no single factor carried the claim.

The decision also shows what a review is for. A refusal made on the papers tells you very little about whether protection obligations are owed. It tells you what the Department had in front of it.

How does My Migration Lawyers work on protection visa reviews at the Administrative Review Tribunal?

My Migration Lawyers acts for people in protection visa matters and appears at the Administrative Review Tribunal regularly. Protection visa reviews are a standing part of the firm's practice, and the firm carries a substantial number of Administrative Review Tribunal protection matters at any given time, across a range of nationalities and claim types.

On a review of this kind, the work is specific. We read the delegate's decision to identify exactly what was found and what was assumed. We identify the correct particular social group or other Convention reason and frame it so it survives section 5L. We go to the current country information, including the DFAT report for the relevant country, and we work out what it says both for and against the claim, because the mitigating factors in a DFAT report are the ones the Tribunal will put to you at the hearing. We prepare a written statement and submissions that address the elements of section 5J rather than telling a story. We identify and prepare witnesses to address the specific factual gaps, and we lodge documents in time for the member to read them. We prepare the applicant for the hearing so that the account given orally matches the account given on paper.

If your protection visa has been refused, or your application was lodged by someone else and does not reflect your actual claims, we can advise you on where you stand. You can request a consultation with a migration lawyer using the online form, or contact My Migration Lawyers and a lawyer will reply by email. Consultations are held by video, Australia wide, and our protection visa lawyers page sets out how we work on these matters and what the first consultation covers. Principal Lawyer Weiwei Zhang leads the firm's protection work, and further case notes and guides are published on the My Migration Lawyers blog.