If you are organizing and submitting an Australian partner visa application and the basis of your eligibility is a de facto relationship with an Australian citizen or permanent resident, then you should definitely prepare and submit a legal declaration as part of your application.
In this article, I will provide you with some practical tips to help you prepare your own legal declaration.
Although this is not listed as a required document on the Department’s checklist, it is best that you prepare a legal affidavit and submit it with your application. The purpose of preparing this document is to give your case officer an account of your relationship together. You will also provide explanations about the supporting evidence you are presenting.
Listed below are my suggestions for preparing your own legal statement:
1) Draft the legal statement factually and objectively. Avoid long descriptions and subjective statements. The exception to this is when subjective and relevant statements are required. This will only be the case in certain sections of your legal statement. For example, you can include subjective statements within the ‘Nature of people’s commitment to each other’ section.
2) This can be the most challenging aspect of the organization application because the author of the legal statement will need to have a good command of the English language, particularly written English. However, writing the legal declaration is probably a less daunting task than you might imagine. This task should be facilitated if the objective of this document is taken into account. As stated above, the purpose of this document is to provide the case officer with a factual account of your relationship. He is not required to write a long novel about their relationship. Focus on and address the four considerations that your case officer needs to take into account in a very objective manner and refer to the supporting evidence that he or she has presented whenever possible. Following the basic principles outlined in this article will help you make a legal statement that will guide your case officer.
3) Whenever possible, the statements of fact that are made in the statutory statement should be supported by the evidence that you are presenting. By making such links, you are affirming the accuracy of your statements. Help your case officer by clearly marking the supporting evidence being referenced and relied upon (for example, after a statement or series of statements, write in parentheses ‘Please refer to the documents labeled “A” evidencing the statements made’ and label the top of the corresponding documents with “A”).
4) While this is not mentioned as one of the factors your case officer will need to consider, I would recommend that you incorporate a short opening paragraph that talks about the early development of your relationship and also an additional section that clearly details the duration of your cohabitation with your partner. The introductory section should provide a brief description (no more than two paragraphs) of how you and your partner met (for example, place, date, occasion, etc.) and also some statements about the early development of your relationship . I suggest writing a couple of lines about what you and your partner did on your first dates before confirming the date you as a couple made the decision that you were in a de facto relationship. The purpose of these awards is to: 1) immediately establish a context for understanding your relationship and 2) clearly establish that the requirement that your relationship must have existed for at least twelve months prior to the accommodation of the request is met.
5) The Department suggests that you address the duration of your cohabitation within the consideration of ‘Nature of commitment of the persons to each other’. However, I prefer to address this essential consideration at the beginning of the legal statement, following the introductory section, rather than towards the end. Also, I recommend that you keep these sections short and structure the content chronologically. This information can be presented as a list or table, indicating the address where the cohabitation took place, the date the cohabitation began (and ended if applicable), and then repeating this information again for your different cohabitation addresses. For each address listed, include references to documents showing cohabitation at that address. You can indicate the total number of days or months of cohabitation at each and every address and then give a final total. This will clearly demonstrate that the requirement of a minimum of 12 months of cohabitation prior to application accommodation is met.
Before you complete and use your legal statement, please read it to make sure the information presented is clear and easy to understand. Your legal statements must be free of grammatical and spelling errors. Nothing breaks the rhythm of reading a document more than constantly encountering spelling and grammar problems. Of course, a handful of bugs won’t make or break your app. However, you should try to submit the best possible application. Also, if your friends or colleagues cannot understand your legal statement, then your case officer has even less chance.