Concurrent Sentences
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pathway Advice and Character Issues
Visa Cancellation on character grounds can have permanent consequences
Character issues now spill into many areas of migration law
Mandatory Visa Cancellation for Imprisonment for Certain Crimes
28 Days to Apply to Have the Mandatory Cancellation Revoked
Person Remains in Detention Once a Visa is Cancelled
Merit Review, Mandatory Cancellation and Revocation of Cancellation
What is the Relevance of s 501(3A) to Sentencing Principles
Other Character Cancellation Powers
The Character Test in the Non-Mandatory Cancellation Context
Substantial Criminal Record – Imprisonment
Okay to Exhaust All Remedies
Australian Citizen Children
Offences in Immigration Detention
Involved in a Group Involved in Criminal Conduct
People Smuggling
General Character
Further General Grounds to Fail the Character Test
Sexually Based Offences Involving a Child
War Crimes
ASIO Adverse Assessment or an Interpol Notice
Additional Definitions of Substantial Criminal Record
The Minister’s Personal Power
Administrative Appeals Tribunal Review
Judicial Review of AAT Decisions
Time Limits for AAT Review
Practice Points
Can’t Go Behind the Conviction
Character References
Forensic Psychiatric Report
Those Convicted of Fraud
The Minister’s personal decisions including those in the national interest
Notes from Lorenzo
The Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Act 2014 came into force on 11 December 2014 also converted the legal effect of a concurrent sentence to treating concurrent sentences as a cumulative of each concurrent sentence imposed – see s 501 (7A) :
Concurrent sentences
(7A) For the purposes of the character test, if a person has been sentenced to 2 or more terms of imprisonment to be served concurrently (whether in whole or in part), the whole of each term is to be counted in working out the total of the terms.
Example: A person is sentenced to 2 terms of 3 months imprisonment for 2 offences, to be served concurrently. For the purposes of the character test, the total of those terms is 6 months.
This means that a person convicted of concurrent sentences of 3 months imprisonment each for say 5 offences would fall foul of the mandatory visa cancellation regime as this would be regarded as a sentence of 15 months, even though the time actually served in prison would be 3 months. The previous case law interpreted a concurrent sentence as whatever time was actually served in prison in order to determine if the person was sentence to a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more (ie a person who received 5 concurrent 3 month sentences was considered as serving a term of only 3 months).
This overturns the Full Federal Court decision of Minister for Immigration & Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs v Ball [2004] FCAFC 91 (22 April 2004) which found that a sentence was determined that a concurrent sentence was looked at by the total amount of time a prisoner actually had to serve, not by treating a concurrent sentence as a cumulative individual sentence.