A prior refusal does not answer that question by itself. Identify the legal ground, whether it remains applicable and any subsequent resolution. A temporary-category qualification issue differs from a continuing inadmissibility finding. Review the actual record before treating either a remembered explanation or the fee payment as an eligibility answer.
Read the ground and the later history together
A request for missing information may have led to a later decision that the initial refusal sheet does not show. A more serious finding may require analysis of available relief, which cannot be assumed. Supply the complete sequence to counsel.
Gold Card vetting, category eligibility and visa availability still apply even if the earlier refusal presents no continuing obstacle. Sequence the enquiries so each one informs the next. Establish first what was decided and under which provision; only then ask whether anything since has changed it; only after that whether relief was ever sought or granted.
Working in the other direction produces advice about a problem that may not exist. Where the record shows a request for evidence followed by silence, find out what happened at the end of that period, since an application closed for abandonment reads differently from one refused on the merits. Keep the date of each step, because the age of a finding can matter to what follows and cannot be established from a summary sheet.