Nasir Haque lodged her application for Skilled Sponsored subclass 886 visa and she has two dependent children. Her 12 years old daughter (second applicant) was suffering from “autistic spectrum disorder”. They all are citizens of Hungary. At the time the applicants made their visa application, the primary applicants and her family members has to satisfy the public interest criteria. As part of visa process, all the applicants has to go through the medical assessment to make sure that they are free from a disease or condition that may result the applicant being, a threat to public health in Australia or a danger to Australian community and free from disease which might require community services and would cause a significant cost to Australian community. …show more content…
Whether or not an applicant meets the health requirement is a totally arbitrary decision of Medical Officer of Commonwealth alone, based on documents supplied via Panel Doctor. One of the more controversial elements of assessments made under the health requirements is the standard of the ‘hypothetical person’. This test basically assesses the level of a visa applicant’s disability and measures that against the health and community services which a person currently in Australia with the same condition would be eligible to access. In this case, majority of pediatrician’s medical report stated that girl was functioning fairly well and attending to all her personal hygiene and activities of daily living. But RMOC gave totally different opinion that she is totally dependent and it was based on hypothetical person with similar disability. Tribunal thought that it was bound to accept the Medical Officer’s opinion but in reality it is not. The Tribunal is not bound by technicalities, legal forms or rules of evidence and shall act according to substantial justice and the merits of the