Background
Mohammad Majed Nayf Al-Dmour, a Jordanian national, applied in 2018 for a medical treatment visa so that he could receive psychotherapy for anxiety and depression. A delegate refused the visa because he was not satisfied that Al-Dmour genuinely intended to remain in Australia temporarily. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal affirmed that decision after Al-Dmour said, among other things, that he had stopped treatment in 2019, had no current treatment arrangements and did not intend to return to Jordan.
A registrar of the Federal Circuit and Family Court summarily dismissed Al-Dmour’s judicial-review application because none of its three grounds had reasonable prospects of success. A judge then dismissed his application to review the registrar’s decision. At that hearing, Al-Dmour said that he did not disagree with any part of the Tribunal’s or registrar’s decision and that seeking review was his only option to remain lawfully in Australia.
Al-Dmour applied to the Federal Court for an extension of time and leave to appeal, filing seven days late. His proposed grounds repeated allegations previously made against the Tribunal, including failure to engage intellectually with the evidence, account for pandemic-related barriers to treatment, and consider his mental health.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Bromwich dismissed the application for an extension of time and leave to appeal. Although the seven-day delay might not itself have been problematic, the proposed appeal was manifestly without merit. The grounds merely asserted that the primary judge should have found the alleged Tribunal errors raised earlier; they did not identify an error in the primary judge’s reasoning.
The Court held that the primary judge was entirely correct to dismiss the review application. It also noted Al-Dmour’s confirmation that he found no error in the Tribunal’s or registrar’s decisions and was pursuing the litigation to extend his lawful stay. His AI-generated written submissions made no genuine attempt to identify error by the primary judge.
Al-Dmour was ordered to pay the Minister’s costs, fixed at $4,000.
Key Takeaways
- A short filing delay may still prove fatal where the proposed appeal is manifestly without merit.
- Proposed appeal grounds must identify error in the judgment under appeal; merely repeating allegations against the administrative tribunal is insufficient.
- The Court dismissed the application where the applicant acknowledged no error in the underlying decisions and pursued review to prolong his lawful stay.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that extensions of time and leave to appeal are not available simply to prolong migration proceedings. Even a modest delay will not be excused when the proposed grounds disclose no arguable appellate error.
It also illustrates the limits of AI-generated legal submissions: their origin was not itself dispositive, but the Court gave them no further consideration because they failed to engage with the primary judge’s reasoning or identify a genuine error.