There have been questions regarding the strictness of Public Interest Criterion 4020 and the applicability
of the related laws and penalties regarding it.

If there is a case of faulty or fake documentation/fraud in the necessary documents when someone
applies for visa, the visa will be refused, for obvious reasons. However, if the applicant claims that the
fraud or forgery was done not by the applicant themselves but the migration agent, what happens?

This type of case has been taken to the court for a substantial number of times. In one case the
defendant argued that there was no “knowing complicity” in the application. And multiple cases of
investigation have even showed to the court that the applicant themselves were completely unaware of
the fraud documents and in some cases were victims of said fraud themselves.

However, while it has been proven the applicant themselves to be innocent, it did not have any effect
on the original action of refusal or cancellation of the visa application at all. In short, the court simply
does not care if the bogus documents were the fault of the applicant or the “migration agent”, PIC 4020
will block the applicant anyways.