Subclass 866 Protection Visa Refusal: Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) Guide

What does an Administrative Review Tribunal review of a Subclass 866 refusal actually do?

An Administrative Review Tribunal review of a Subclass 866 Protection Visa refusal is a fresh decision on your whole protection claim, not an appeal against the delegate's reasoning. The Tribunal stands in the shoes of the decision maker. It applies the same law and reaches its own view on whether you meet the refugee criterion in section 36(2)(a) of the Migration Act 1958 or the complementary protection criterion in section 36(2)(aa).

That matters more than most people realise. You are not limited to showing that the delegate made a mistake. You are being assessed again, from the beginning, by a different person who was not involved in the first decision. A weak interview at the Department is not fatal on its own. A weak case is.

The Tribunal also inherits the same statutory constraints the delegate worked under. It applies the definition of refugee in section 5H, the well-founded fear test in section 5J, the closed list of significant harm in section 36(2A), and the three exclusions in section 36(2B) covering relocation, state protection and general risk faced by the population. It is bound by Ministerial Direction No 84, made under section 499, which requires decision makers to take account of the Department's Refugee Law Guidelines and Complementary Protection Guidelines and certain country information assessments prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

One more feature separates protection reviews from most other tribunal work in Australia. The Minister is taken to be a non-participating party in a review of a protection decision. In practice, no lawyer from the Department turns up to argue against you. The questioning comes from the Tribunal member. That is not a softer process. It means the member who will decide your case is also the person testing it.

How long do you have to apply to the ART after a Subclass 866 refusal?

You have 28 days after the day you are notified of the refusal, unless you were in immigration detention on that day, in which case you have 14 days. This is set by section 347(3) of the Migration Act 1958. Paragraph (a) gives 14 days to an applicant who is in immigration detention on the day they are notified. Paragraph (b) gives 28 days in every other case.

These are calendar days, not business days. Weekends and public holidays are counted. If the twenty eighth day falls on a Sunday, the twenty eighth day is still the last day.

The period runs from notification of the Department's decision, not from the date you actually read the letter, opened the email or understood what it said. That distinction destroys more protection cases than any legal argument, and it is the first thing we check on every protection visa refusal matter.

Note the figure carefully, because a great deal of published material is out of date. For years the period for an applicant in immigration detention was 7 working days under the Migration Regulations 1994. Since the Administrative Review Tribunal began on 14 October 2024, the figure in section 347(3)(a) of the Act is 14 days. If a website, a fact sheet or a previous adviser tells you 7 working days, check the Act. If you are in detention, assume the shorter period applies and act immediately either way.

Can the Administrative Review Tribunal extend the deadline to apply?

No. The Tribunal has no power to extend the period in section 347(3), in any circumstances, for any reason. Section 347(5) of the Migration Act 1958 expressly disapplies section 19 of the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024, which is the general provision that would otherwise let the Tribunal extend the time to apply.

There is no discretion, no exceptional circumstances test and no good reason exception. Illness, hospitalisation, an interpreter problem, a change of address, a previous agent who did nothing, and an email that landed in a junk folder all produce the same result. The Tribunal has no jurisdiction and cannot review the decision.

This is the single most important fact about a Subclass 866 refusal, and it is the reason the first thing to do with a refusal letter is not to read the reasons. It is to work out the last day.

Once the period has passed, merits review is gone permanently. What remains is judicial review in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, which tests legality rather than merits, or a request for ministerial intervention, which nobody is entitled to. Neither is a substitute for a review application lodged in time.

When are you notified of a protection visa refusal, and why does that date matter?

You are notified on the date the Migration Act says you are, not the date you actually received the document. Section 494C sets out when a person is taken to have received a document given by one of the methods in section 494B, and the deemed dates are strict.

The four that matter most are these.

Handed to you in person. You are taken to have received the document when it is handed to you.

Emailed, faxed or sent by other electronic means. You are taken to have received it at the end of the day on which it was transmitted. Not the day you opened it. The same day it was sent.

Made available in your ImmiAccount or other online account. You are taken to have received it at the end of the day on which it was made available. Again, the day it appeared, not the day you logged in.

Posted by prepaid post. If the document was dispatched from a place in Australia to an address in Australia, you are taken to have received it 7 working days after the date of the document. In any other case, including post to an address outside Australia, the period is 21 days after the date of the document.

Read those two postal figures again. The clock starts from the date printed on the document, not the date of posting and not the date of delivery. A refusal letter dated the first of a month, posted a week later and delivered a week after that, was deemed received 7 working days after the first of the month. Weeks of your 28 days can be gone before the envelope reaches your letterbox.

The practical consequence is that the safe assumption is always the earliest possible deemed notification date. Work backwards from that, not from the day you found out.

Which protection visa refusals can the Administrative Review Tribunal review?

The Tribunal can review a refusal that falls within the definition of a reviewable protection decision in section 338A of the Migration Act 1958. Broadly, that covers a decision to refuse to grant a protection visa, a decision to cancel a protection visa, and a decision under section 197D(2) that a person is no longer a person in respect of whom protection obligations are owed.

Some refusals are carved out of that definition and travel on a different path.

A refusal made because of section 5H(2), section 36(1B), section 36(1C), or section 36(2C)(a) or (b) is not a reviewable protection decision. Those provisions deal with exclusion from refugee status and with serious criminality and danger to the Australian community. A refusal relying on section 5H(2), section 36(1C) or section 36(2C)(a) or (b) is instead reviewable under section 500, which is the character pathway, with different application requirements and a much shorter time limit. If your refusal letter cites any of those provisions, do not assume the ordinary 28 day protection pathway applies. Get the letter read by a lawyer the day it arrives.

Three further exclusions sit in section 338A(2). A decision is not a reviewable protection decision if the Minister has issued a conclusive certificate under section 339 removing it from review, if the cancellation was made by the Minister personally, or if the decision was made in relation to a person who was not in Australia's migration zone at the time of the decision.

Your refusal letter must tell you whether a review right exists and which body holds it. Read that part first, because it drives everything that follows. The criteria the Tribunal then applies are the same criteria that governed the original Subclass 866 Protection Visa application.

Who can apply for ART review of a Subclass 866 refusal?

Only the non-citizen who is the subject of the refusal can apply, and they must be physically present in Australia's migration zone when the application is made. Section 347A(4) restricts standing to the subject of the decision. Section 347A(5) requires physical presence in the migration zone at the time of application.

Both limbs are jurisdictional. A spouse, a parent, a sponsor, a church, a community organisation and an employer cannot lodge the application on their own behalf. A registered migration agent or a lawyer can act for you and lodge on your instructions, but the applicant is you.

The presence requirement catches people out. If you leave Australia and lodge the review application from overseas, the application is not validly made. If you have already lodged and then depart, you have a different problem, because clause 866.411 of Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994 requires an applicant to be in Australia at the time the visa is granted. Leaving Australia while a protection matter is on foot is close to always a serious mistake, and it is rarely reversible.

Members of your family unit who were included in the original application are dealt with as part of your application. They do not lodge separate review applications. If they were not included originally, adding them at the Tribunal stage is not straightforward and needs advice.

What happened to the fast track process and the Immigration Assessment Authority?

Both were abolished on 14 October 2024, when the Administrative Review Tribunal replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Act 2024 repealed Part 7 of the Migration Act, which had governed Refugee Review Tribunal reviews, and repealed Part 7AA, which had created the Immigration Assessment Authority and the fast track review process.

Protection reviews now sit in Part 5 of the Migration Act alongside migration reviews, under the label reviewable protection decision. Within the Tribunal, the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 established eight jurisdictional areas, including a Protection jurisdictional area and a separate Migration jurisdictional area.

The practical effect for people who were fast track applicants is significant. A person who was a fast track applicant immediately before 14 October 2024, and whose application had not been decided by then, has their later refusal referred by the Minister to the Tribunal, and that referral is treated as an application for review of a reviewable protection decision. In other words, the limited paper based review by the Immigration Assessment Authority has been replaced by ordinary merits review.

Any page, letter or adviser still describing the Immigration Assessment Authority, the fast track process, the Refugee Review Tribunal or a Part 7 review as current is working from repealed law.

What does it cost to apply to the ART for a protection review?

The fee for review of a reviewable protection decision is AUD 2,293 from 1 July 2026, and in general it is payable only if the review is not successful. That is the Tribunal's own published position. The comparison is worth noting. The fee for review of a reviewable migration decision, meaning most other visa refusals, is AUD 3,727 from 1 July 2026 and is paid at lodgement, with a 50 per cent reduction available on financial hardship grounds.

The Tribunal's fees increase annually under Rule 33 of the Administrative Review Tribunal Rules 2024 and regulations 4.13A and 4.31BA of the Migration Regulations 1994, in line with the Consumer Price Index. The fee that applies is the fee in force when the fee is paid, not when the application was lodged.

Do not let the fee structure drive the decision about whether to lodge. The deferred fee exists because protection applicants are, as a group, in no position to find thousands of dollars in 28 days. The cost that actually decides outcomes is the cost of preparing the case properly, and that is a separate question from the Tribunal's fee.

Is ART review of a protection refusal a fresh hearing or an appeal?

It is a fresh hearing. Under section 348 of the Migration Act 1958, once an application is properly made under sections 347 and 347A, the Tribunal must review the decision. It does so on the merits, reaching what it considers the correct or preferable decision on the material before it, including material that did not exist when the Department decided.

This is why the language of appeal is misleading. You do not need to identify an error by the delegate. You do not win because the delegate misquoted a country report. You win because the Tribunal is satisfied, on the evidence before it, that you meet a protection criterion.

It also means that everything is live again. Favourable findings the delegate made in your favour do not bind the Tribunal. If the delegate accepted you are a citizen of a particular country and questioned only whether you would be harmed, the Tribunal can still doubt your nationality. Preparation that treats the Tribunal as a narrow second opinion on one disputed issue is preparation that misunderstands the jurisdiction.

Can you give the ART new evidence and new claims the Department never saw?

Yes, but there is a statutory penalty attached, and this is the point most published guidance gets wrong. Section 367A of the Migration Act 1958 applies to all reviewable protection decisions. Where you raise a claim or present evidence that was not raised or presented before the primary decision was made, the Tribunal must draw an inference unfavourable to your credibility if it is satisfied you do not have a reasonable explanation for the omission.

Read that again. The Tribunal is not permitted to simply take the new material at face value and move on. If the explanation for lateness is not reasonable, an adverse credibility inference follows as a matter of statute.

This is a trap for anyone who has been told the Tribunal is a clean slate where you can finally tell the real story. You can tell it. You will be asked why you did not tell it earlier, and the answer has to hold.

Reasonable explanations do exist and are accepted regularly in practice. Shame and fear are the common ones in sexual orientation and gender identity claims, where an applicant did not disclose their sexuality at the Department because of the presence of an interpreter from their own community, a family member in the room, or a belief that the information would reach home. Mental health, the effects of trauma on recall, incompetent or dishonest earlier representation, and a genuine misunderstanding about what the Department was asking are others.

What matters is that the explanation is given, in writing, with supporting material, before the hearing. A psychological report that speaks to disclosure and memory is worth more than an assertion at the hearing that you were scared. Section 367A does not stop new claims. It punishes unexplained ones.

Whose job is it to prove the protection claim at the Tribunal?

Yours. Section 5AAA of the Migration Act 1958 states that it is the responsibility of the applicant to specify all particulars of the claim to be a person in respect of whom Australia has protection obligations, and to provide sufficient evidence to establish the claim. It states that the Minister, and the Tribunal on review, does not have any responsibility or obligation to specify or assist in specifying any particulars of the claim, or to establish or assist in establishing the claim.

There is no investigator working on your behalf. The Tribunal is not required to find the country report that helps you, to identify the legal basis you have missed, or to ask the question that would have unlocked your case.

That is the whole argument for written submissions prepared by protection visa lawyers before the hearing. A protection case that is presented as a stack of documents and a hopeful applicant is a case where the Tribunal member must construct the claim themselves, and they are under no duty to do so. A case presented with the claim articulated, the criterion identified, the country information pinpointed and the credibility issues met head on is a case the member can decide.

What must the ART tell you before it relies on information against you?

Section 359A of the Migration Act 1958 requires the Tribunal to give you clear particulars of any information it considers would be the reason, or part of the reason, for affirming the decision under review, to ensure as far as reasonably practicable that you understand why it is relevant and what the consequences are, and to invite you to comment on it. The Tribunal decides the way that invitation is given.

The exclusions are where the real work is. Section 359A(4) removes the obligation for several categories of information, including information you yourself gave during the process that led to the decision under review, other than information you gave orally to the Department, non-disclosable information, and information that was included or referred to in the written statement of the decision under review.

That last exclusion is the one to understand. If an adverse country report or an inconsistency is set out in the delegate's written decision record, the Tribunal does not have to write to you again before relying on it. The refusal letter is your notice.

This cuts against a common assumption that you will always get a formal letter identifying the problems before the hearing, and that anything not put to you in writing cannot be used. That is not the law. Section 357A also provides that the relevant Division of Part 5 is an exhaustive statement of the requirements of the natural justice hearing rule in relation to the matters it deals with. Procedural fairness arguments at judicial review are confined by that code.

The practical response is simple and it is not optional. Go through the delegate's decision record line by line and treat every adverse finding in it as an issue you will be asked about, whether or not you receive a separate letter.

What happens at an Administrative Review Tribunal hearing for a protection claim?

The hearing is an interview conducted by the Tribunal member, in private, usually by video or in person, and usually lasting between one and three hours. There is no cross examination by a lawyer for the Department, because the Minister is a non-participating party in a protection review.

Section 367B requires a hearing before the Tribunal in relation to a reviewable protection decision to be held in private, and section 369 restricts publication of information identifying an applicant. Your case is not heard in open court. Published decisions in this jurisdiction are de-identified.

You will be invited to appear and give evidence and present arguments relating to the issues arising in relation to the decision under review. In practice the member will have read the Department's file and the delegate's decision, and will use the hearing to test the parts of your account that concern them. Expect questions about dates, sequence, names, geography, why you left when you did, why you applied when you did, what you say will happen on return, and any inconsistency between what you said at the protection visa interview and what you have said since.

An interpreter is provided if you need one. Ask for the correct language and dialect early and in writing, because an interpreter who does not share your dialect produces exactly the kind of inconsistency that then has to be explained. You may be represented. A representative is not there to answer for you, but can make oral submissions and can identify where the record has been misread.

Witnesses may give evidence, typically by telephone or video. Written statements from partners, friends, community members, treating practitioners and country experts carry weight and should be filed in advance rather than handed up on the day.

What happens if you do not attend the ART hearing?

The Tribunal may dismiss your application. Section 99 of the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 permits the Tribunal to dismiss an application if the applicant does not appear. Section 100 permits dismissal if an applicant fails to comply with an order, and section 101 permits dismissal if an application is frivolous or vexatious.

There is a way back, and it is time limited. Section 368C of the Migration Act 1958 provides that where the Tribunal dismisses an application for review of a reviewable protection decision under section 99, 100 or 101 of the Administrative Review Tribunal Act, you may apply for reinstatement within 28 days after receiving notice of the dismissal. On such an application the Tribunal must either reinstate the application, if it considers it appropriate to do so, or confirm the dismissal. If you do not apply within the 28 days, the Tribunal must confirm the dismissal.

Reinstatement is a discretion, not a right. Missing a hearing because of a medical emergency, documented on the day, is a different proposition to missing it because the notice went to an old address. Keep your address for service current with the Tribunal in writing, every time it changes.

How long does an Administrative Review Tribunal protection review take?

Protection reviews are among the slowest matters the Tribunal handles. Of all protection reviews finalised between 1 February 2026 and 31 July 2026, half were finalised within 2 years and 2 months from the day the application was lodged, and 95 per cent were finalised within 5 years and 1 month from lodgement. Those figures are published by the Administrative Review Tribunal and are a guide only. They do not predict any individual case.

Plan on years, not months. That has consequences beyond patience. Evidence ages. Country conditions change, sometimes in your favour and sometimes against it. Medical and psychological reports prepared for the Department will be stale by the time of the hearing and usually need updating. Witnesses move, relationships end, and phone numbers change.

It also means the waiting period is not dead time. It is the period in which the case is either built or left to drift. The strongest protection cases at hearing are almost always the ones where the material was assembled early and added to as it became available, not the ones assembled in the fortnight before the hearing notice.

What visa are you on while the ART review is running?

Most people awaiting an Administrative Review Tribunal protection review hold a bridging visa, but it is not automatic and the type varies with your circumstances. If you held a bridging visa associated with the protection visa application, lodging a valid review application within time is generally what keeps a lawful status pathway open, because bridging visas granted in connection with a substantive visa application are keyed to the review process in Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994.

Work rights, study rights and access to services are not uniform. They depend on the bridging visa subclass and the conditions imposed on it, and the conditions on a bridging visa granted after a refusal are not always the same as the conditions on the one you held before. Check the grant notice rather than assuming continuity.

Two practical points are worth stating plainly. First, if your review application is not valid, the bridging visa arrangements that depend on a pending review do not arise, and the consequences can be immediate. Second, departing Australia will generally end a bridging visa and will prevent a grant under clause 866.411, which requires the applicant to be in Australia at the time the visa is granted. Departure is not a pause button.

What outcomes can the Administrative Review Tribunal reach on a protection review?

There are two realistic outcomes, and neither of them is a visa. The Tribunal can affirm the refusal under section 105 of the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024, which leaves the Department's decision standing. Or it can set the decision aside and remit the matter to the Department for reconsideration under section 349(2) of the Migration Act 1958, with such orders or recommendations as are permitted by the Migration Regulations 1994.

Remittal is the favourable outcome, and it is commonly misdescribed as the Tribunal granting the visa. It does not. Under regulation 4.33 the Tribunal's directions are limited to specified matters, in practice a direction that you are a person in respect of whom Australia has protection obligations under section 36(2)(a) or section 36(2)(aa). The file then goes back to the Department, which applies the remaining criteria for the Subclass 866 Protection Visa.

Those remaining criteria are real and they can still defeat an application. Health, character, identity under sections 91W and 91WA, and the requirement in clause 866.411 that the applicant be in Australia at the time of grant all sit with the Department after remittal. A remittal is a very good day. It is not the end of the matter, and the Department can still take months to finalise the grant.

The Tribunal can also dismiss an application without deciding it, for the reasons set out in the Administrative Review Tribunal Act, and it must dismiss where it finds it has no jurisdiction, which is what happens to every application lodged outside the statutory period.

Is there an appeal against an ART decision within the Tribunal?

No. There is no right of appeal from one part of the Administrative Review Tribunal to another in a protection matter. The Guidance and Appeals Panel established under Part 5 of the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 exists to address significant issues and material errors, but it is not open to you as of right.

For migration and protection decisions, the President may refer a matter to the Guidance and Appeals Panel on the President's own initiative. An applicant cannot make an application to the President for referral to the Guidance and Appeals Panel after the Tribunal has made its decision. That restriction is set out in the Tribunal's own practice direction for migration, protection and character matters.

The consequence is straightforward. Treat the first Tribunal decision as the last merits decision you will get. Everything after it is either a court, which will not re-decide the facts, or the Minister, who is under no duty to consider anything.

What are your options if the ART affirms the refusal?

There are three, and two of them are not decisions on the merits of your claim. Judicial review in the courts. A request for ministerial intervention. Departure from Australia, with or without assistance.

Judicial review is an application to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) under section 476 of the Migration Act 1958. Under section 477 it must be made within 35 days of the date of the migration decision. The court may extend that 35 day period if an application for an extension is made in writing specifying why it is necessary in the interests of the administration of justice, and the court is satisfied that it is. An equivalent 35 day limit and extension power apply to the Federal Court under section 477A.

Ministerial intervention under section 351 of the Migration Act allows the Minister, if the Minister thinks it is in the public interest, to substitute a more favourable decision for a decision of the Tribunal, whether or not the Tribunal had power to make that decision. The power may only be exercised by the Minister personally, and section 351(7) states that the Minister does not have a duty to consider whether to exercise it, whether or not a request is made. If the Minister does intervene, a statement must be tabled in each House of Parliament, and in a protection matter it must not name the applicant.

Note the section number. Section 417 was the intervention power that attached to Refugee Review Tribunal decisions under the repealed Part 7. Following the 2024 reforms, the power that attaches to a Tribunal decision on a reviewable protection decision is section 351. Material still citing section 417 for a current protection matter is out of date.

Can you lodge a second protection visa application after the ART affirms the refusal?

No. Section 48A of the Migration Act 1958 bars a non-citizen in the migration zone who has been refused a protection visa from making a further application for a protection visa while they remain in the migration zone. This is a real bar and it is not avoided by adding new claims, changing the basis of the claim, or lodging on a different form.

The only way through it is section 48B, which allows the Minister to determine personally that section 48A does not apply to a particular non-citizen, if the Minister thinks it is in the public interest. Like section 351, that power is personal, non-compellable and not subject to any duty to consider a request.

This is why the Tribunal hearing is the last real opportunity to put the complete case. There is no second protection application waiting behind it. Any claim you hold back, any document you do not obtain, any witness you do not call, is not deferred to a later application. It is lost.

Do not confuse section 48A with section 48. The section 48 bar, which stops a person applying onshore for most visas after a refusal or cancellation, leaves protection visas available. That is why a protection visa can follow a student or visitor refusal, and it is one of the sharpest distinctions in the general visa refusal framework. Section 48A is the one that bites after a protection refusal, and it bites hard.

What is commonly said about ART protection reviews that is simply wrong?

Five statements appear repeatedly in published material and in advice given to applicants, and each of them is incorrect under the law as it now stands.

"You have 7 working days if you are in detention." The current period in section 347(3)(a) is 14 days. The 7 working day figure comes from the Migration Regulations as they applied before the Administrative Review Tribunal commenced.

"Your appeal goes to the Immigration Assessment Authority if you came by boat." The Immigration Assessment Authority was abolished and Part 7AA was repealed on 14 October 2024. Fast track review no longer exists. Affected applicants now receive ordinary merits review by the Tribunal.

"The Tribunal is a clean slate, so raise everything for the first time there." Section 367A requires the Tribunal to draw an unfavourable credibility inference where a new claim or new evidence is raised without a reasonable explanation for why it was not raised earlier.

"You can ask for more time if you have a good reason." Section 347(5) disapplies the general extension power in section 19 of the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024. There is no extension power for a protection review application.

"If you win, the Tribunal gives you the visa." The Tribunal sets the decision aside and remits the matter to the Department under section 349(2). The Department grants the visa, after it is satisfied about health, character, identity and the other criteria.

A sixth is worth adding because it causes real harm. Leaving Australia does not pause a protection matter. It undermines it, because clause 866.411 requires presence in Australia at time of grant, and because section 347A(5) requires presence in the migration zone when a review application is made.

What are the most common mistakes in an ART protection review?

The mistakes that decide protection reviews are almost never legal. They are practical, and they are avoidable.

Calculating the deadline from the wrong date. The period runs from deemed notification under section 494C, which is frequently earlier than the date the applicant learned of the refusal.

Not reading the delegate's decision record properly. Every adverse finding in it is an issue at the hearing, and under section 359A(4) the Tribunal does not have to re-notify you of information already set out in it.

Filing evidence late or at the hearing. Documents handed up on the day are given less weight than documents filed in advance with a submission explaining what they prove.

Untranslated documents. A police report, summons, medical certificate or news article in another language, without a translation, is close to useless.

Inconsistency that is never explained. Inconsistency between the entry interview, the written statement, the Department interview and the hearing is the most common single reason a protection claim is not accepted. It is usually explicable. It is rarely explained, because nobody prepared the explanation in advance.

Generic country information. A general report saying conditions are poor does not establish a real chance of serious harm to you. Country information has to be tied to your profile, your region, your ethnicity, religion, political opinion, sexual orientation or other characteristic, and to the period that matters.

Assuming an interpreter will be adequate. Confirm language and dialect in writing, and raise any difficulty during the hearing, not after the decision.

Silence during the wait. A review that sits untouched for two years and is then prepared in a fortnight is a review that will be decided on the Department's version of your story.

How does My Migration Lawyers work on a Subclass 866 refusal at the Tribunal?

We start with the deadline, on the day you contact us. Before anything else, we identify the method of notification, apply section 494C, and calculate the last day to lodge. If that day is close, lodging a valid review application comes first and everything else follows.

We then obtain and read the complete Departmental file, including the interview recording where one exists, and compare it against the delegate's reasons. Most of the work in a protection review is locating the precise findings that have to be displaced, and the precise evidence capable of displacing them. That is a document exercise before it is an advocacy exercise.

From there we prepare a written submission that identifies the criterion relied on under section 36(2)(a) or section 36(2)(aa), sets out the claim with dates and particulars as section 5AAA requires, addresses every credibility issue in the decision record directly, explains any new claim or evidence in terms capable of satisfying section 367A, and ties country information to your individual profile rather than to general conditions. We brief you for the hearing, arrange for the right interpreter, and attend with you.

We act for people at every stage of a protection matter, including the original application, the Department interview, the Tribunal, and judicial review of a Tribunal decision where the refusal is affirmed. Our page on protection visa refusals and Tribunal review sets out how those stages fit together. If your Subclass 866 Protection Visa has been refused, the responsible next step is to get the deadline calculated and the decision record read by a lawyer straight away. You can book a consultation with My Migration Lawyers, or send us the refusal letter through our contact page and we will tell you what your last day is.