If you are organizing and lodging 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 definitely should prepare and submit a statutory declaration as part of your application.
In this article, I will provide you with some practical advice which will help you prepare your own statutory declaration.
Although this is not listed as a needed document on the Department's checklist, it is best that you prepare a sworn statutory declaration and submit this with your application. The purpose of preparing this document is to give your case officer with an account of your relationship together. You will also be providing explanations for the supporting evidence that you're submitting.
Listed below are my suggestions for preparing your own statutory declaration:
1) Write the statutory declaration in a factual and objective way. Avoid lengthy descriptions and subjective statements. The exception to this is where subjective statements are required and relevant. This will only be the case in certain sections of your statutory declaration. For example, you can include subjective statements within the 'Nature of the persons' commitment to each other' section.
2) This may just be the most challenging aspect of the application to organize because the author of the statutory declaration will need to have a good grasp of the English language, particularly written English. Nonetheless, writing the statutory declaration is probably less of a daunting task than you imagine. This task ought to be made easier if you bear in mind that the objective of this document. As stated above, the purpose of this document is to give the case officer with a factual account of your relationship. You are not required to write a long novel concerning your relationship. Focus and address the four considerations which your case officer has to take into account in a very factual way and refer back to the supporting evidence that you have lodged whenever possible. Following the basic principles outlined in this article will help you to make a statutory declaration that will guide your case officer.
3) Wherever possible, the statements of fact that are made in the statutory declaration should be backed up by the evidence that you're submitting. By making such links, you are affirming the accuracy of your claims. Aid your case officer by clearly marking the supporting proof that is referred to and relied on (e.g. following a statement or a series of statements, write in brackets 'Please reference documents labeled "A" which evidence the statements made' and tag the top of the appropriate documents with "A").
4) Even though this is not stated as one of the factors that your case officer will have to take account of, I would recommend that you incorporate a short opening paragraph which talks about the initial development of your relationship and also a further section that clearly details the length of your co-habitation with your partner. The introductory section should provide a short description (not more than two paragraphs) of how you and your partner met (e.g. name the location, date, occasion etc.) and also a few statements regarding the initial development of your relationship. I suggest writing a couple of lines about what you and your partner did on your initial few dates before confirming the date that you as a couple made the decision that you were in a de-facto relationship. The objective of these sentences is to: 1) immediately establish a context for understanding your relationship and 2) clearly state that the requirement that your relationship must have existed for at least twelve months prior to the lodgement of the application is satisfied.
5) The Department suggests that you address the duration of your co-habitation within the consideration of 'Nature of the persons' commitment to each other'. However, I prefer to deal with this essential consideration at the start of the statutory declaration, following the introductory section, as opposed to towards the end. In addition, I highly recommend that you keep these sections brief, and that you structure the content in a chronological way. This information can be presented as a list or table, stating the address where co-habitation took place, the date that co-habitation commenced (and stopped if applicable) and then repeating this information again for your different addresses of co-habitation. For every address listed, include references to the documents that demonstrate co-habitation at that address. You may state the overall number of days or months of co-habitation each and every address and then give a final total. This will plainly show that the requirement of a minimum of 12 months of co-habitation prior to lodgement of the application is fulfilled.
Prior to you completing and swearing your statutory declaration, proof-read it to make certain that the information presented is clear and straightforward to understand. Your statutory declarations ought to be free of grammatical and spelling mistakes. Nothing breaks up the rhythm of reading a document more than constantly encountering spelling and grammar problems. Of course, a handful of mistakes won't make or break your application. However, you should try and present the best application possible. Also, if your friends or colleagues are not able to understand your statutory declaration, then your case officer has even less of a chance.
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