Section 57: A Guide To Natural Justice Letters

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Have you received a Natural Justice Letter?

The people at immigration are not so bad.  Usually, you will receive the letter under section 57 of the Migration Act when a case officer has formed a view that they should refuse your visa application.

The Department is being kind. The purpose of the section 57 letter (also known as a Natural Justice Letter) is to allow you to recover from a likely refusal position.

It could be that the decision-maker has missed something fundamental. Or something critical to the application simply does not appear on the Departmental file.

It could also be that the case officer is not satisfied that you have met very basic requirements. This could be either at the time of your application or the time of the Department’s decision. 

s57 Natural Justice Letter

This letter is an opportunity for the case officer to be fair with you. Yes, they can be nice! What you need to do is to ensure that your application does have merits given the concern or multiple concerns raised by the departmental officer in their letter.

If your application does not have merit, you might be better off withdrawing your application. 

Whether you should respond to the Natural Justice Letter or you should simply withdraw the application it’s something that requires careful consideration.

One thing that I see all the time is people providing far more information than is required in relation to the letter. 

Providing the wrong information or too much information or information responses that are not properly worded, or which do not address the point being raised will certainly prejudice your already weak position.

To discuss how best to respond to a Natural Justice Letter, please book a consultation with me.

Your Experience?

Please share your comments with me.

I’d love to know more about your experience with applying for this visa subclass!

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Nilesh Nandan

Nilesh Nandan is Australia's most sought after immigration lawyer for visa refusals and visa cancellations. Appeal your visa or get help to relodge your Australian visa application or citizenship application.

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43 Responses

  1. Sir , I got natural justice letter from Australia high commission, I applied for subclass 500 and department verified my job letter which I attached in my file ,they called my job office and me as well and did cross verification,I am genuine employee there and some point we’re mismatched in verification and please guide me what should I do for further, I’m so upset because I struggled hard and in the end they gave me natural justice 😑

  2. Hi i just received a section 57 letter
    About a debt in commonwealth bank
    So i am confused if i pay all my overdues will they provide me the visa ?

  3. hello my name is Maria, I applied for a partner visa Sept 2021 but my husband suddenly died Oct21, I inform the Immi immediately and they asked me to send the DC and to withdraw my partner visa application, but when i submitted the DC I made a letter to reconsider my application and they replied with this S57, I don’t know how will I start my letter , what will be the content of my letter, pls can i have a 10 mins. talk ? so I will be enlighten, thank you very much you reply will be highly appreciated.

      1. hi sorry pls delete my comment because my full name was published there in your comment section. I am just requesting you to enlighten me about how will I reply to s57. but you’re asking 97 dollars so forget about my question and delete my comment thank you..
        Maria

  4. Good morning Sir/Ma
    I am Olumide by name , an applicant for Australian student visa subclass TU 500, I got a letter from Natural justice informing me to provide and invitation comment on the information provided to them on the 22nd of February which they suspected a bogus information which is my personal bank statement not my sponsors own …the fault came from my local agent when submitted my bank statement. I will so much glad to advice me on what to do next .

    Thank you!

  5. Hi Sir,
    I am applying visa 491 from offshore. Yesterday I received S57 nature justice letter from CO. They caught my mistake of not declaring previous visa refusal.I was asked to comment/clarify this point. To be honest, I completely forgot to disclose my Canada visa refusal that happened in 2019. It was an oversight mistake when completing form 80. Can you advice me how to overcome this? What are the best reasons I need to response to CO. Thanks

  6. Sir,
    Is receiving Australian immi s57 natural justice a lifetime black mark, that would restrict me from migrating even to any other country.?

    Kindly guide.!

    1. Not always.

      You see there are section 57 letters and there are section 57 letters. Get what I mean. Some section 57 letters are rather easy to navigate others can be a scar upon any further application for Australia or indeed for any other country. It all depends on the culpability and the type of adverse information that has been uncovered.

      *In the interest of speed, my communications are transcribed and transmitted using voice-to-text software – please ignore any unintended topographical or interpretation errors. Please also see the standard Notes and Disclosures which apply to my communications. These are located at the footer of my work emails.

      Book a quick 10 minute chat with me here: https://myvisa.com.au/10-Minute

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