Parties to a Relationship Must Have Met in Person

To qualify for a Subclass 300 – Prospective Marriage visa the parties must at some stage have been in each other’s presence.

The Full Federal Court in MIAC v Yucesan [2008] FCAFC 110 (206.08) concerned the interpretation of paragraph 300.214 which reads:

The parties have met and are known to each other personally.

The MRT had earlier ruled that the parties to prospective marriage could have met electronically ie by “non-physical person-to-person interactions”. The Full Federal Court disagreed:

28 Clauses 300.211, 300.215 and 300.216 are directed to ensuring that the marriage decision is genuine. Clause 300.214 can be seen to be directed to the same end. While Shakespeare may speak of the “marriage of true minds”, the decision to marry and live together as spouses involves a commitment to physical cohabitation, not just to a meeting of minds. Whether or not the Federal Magistrate is correct that “meeting by internet or video telephony is at least as effective a way for parties to meet and form an opinion about each other’s compatibility as a future marriage partner” is not to the point. In our view the context of clause 300.214, in particular the anticipation of physical cohabitation, provides no reason to depart from the primary sense of “have met” as requiring the parties to have come into each other’s company or physical presence. It is entirely unsurprising that the regulation should require the parties to have met in this sense as one of the indicators that their intention to marry is genuine.