1417136 (Refugee)

[2016] AATA 3771

1417136 (Refugee) [2016] AATA 3771 (21 April 2016)

DECISION RECORD

DIVISION:Migration & Refugee Division

CASE NUMBER:  1417136

COUNTRY OF REFERENCE:                  Bangladesh

MEMBER:Bruce MacCarthy

DATE:21 April 2016

PLACE OF DECISION:  Sydney

DECISION:The Tribunal affirms the decision not to grant the applicant a Protection visa.

Statement made on 21 April 2016 at 8:31am

Any references appearing in square brackets indicate that information has been omitted from this decision pursuant to section 431 of the Migration Act 1958 and replaced with generic information which does not allow the identification of an applicant, or their relative or other dependant.

STATEMENT OF DECISION AND REASONS

APPLICATION FOR REVIEW

1. This is an application for review of a decision made by a delegate of the Minister for Immigration to refuse to grant the applicant a Protection visa under s.65 of the Migration Act 1958 (the Act).

2. The applicant who claims to be a citizen of Bangladesh, applied for the visa [in] August 2013 and the delegate refused to grant the visa [in] October 2014.  

3. The applicant appeared before the Tribunal on 14 April 2016 to give evidence and present arguments.  The Tribunal hearing was conducted with the assistance of an interpreter in the Bengali and English languages.  The applicant was represented in relation to the review by his registered migration agent.

   RELEVANT LAW

4. The criteria for a protection visa are set out in s.36 of the Act and Schedule 2 to the Migration Regulations 1994 (the Regulations). An applicant for the visa must meet one of the alternative criteria in s.36(2)(a), (aa), (b), or (c). That is, the applicant is either a person in respect of whom Australia has protection obligations under the ‘refugee’ criterion, or on other ‘complementary protection’ grounds, or is a member of the same family unit as such a person and that person holds a protection visa of the same class.

   Refugee criterion

5. Section 36(2)(a) provides that a criterion for a protection visa is that the applicant for the visa is a non-citizen in Australia in respect of whom the Minister is satisfied Australia has protection obligations under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees as amended by the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (together, the Refugees Convention, or the Convention).

6. Australia is a party to the Refugees Convention and generally speaking, has protection obligations in respect of people who are refugees as defined in Article 1 of the Convention. Article 1A(2) relevantly defines a refugee as any person who:

   owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; ...

7. Sections 91R and 91S of the Act qualify some aspects of Article 1A(2) for the purposes of the application of the Act and the Regulations to a particular person.

8. There are four key elements to the Convention definition.  First, an applicant must be outside his country.  Second, an applicant must fear persecution.  Under s.91R(1) of the Act,  persecution must involve ‘serious harm’ to the applicant (s.91R(1)(b)), and systematic and discriminatory conduct (s.91R(1)(c)).  Examples of ‘serious harm’ are set out in s.91R(2) of the Act.  The High Court has explained that persecution may be directed against a person as an individual or as a member of a group.  The persecution must have an official quality, in the sense that it is official, or officially tolerated or uncontrollable by the authorities of the country of nationality.  However, the threat of harm need not be the product of government policy; it may be enough that the government has failed or is unable to protect the applicant from persecution.  Further, persecution implies an element of motivation on the part of those who persecute for the infliction of harm.  People are persecuted for something perceived about them or attributed to them by their persecutors.

9. Third, the persecution which the applicant fears must be for one or more of the reasons enumerated in the Convention definition - race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.  The phrase ‘for reasons of’ serves to identify the motivation for the infliction of the persecution.  The persecution feared need not be solely attributable to a Convention reason.  However, persecution for multiple motivations will not satisfy the relevant test unless a Convention reason or reasons constitute at least the essential and significant motivation for the persecution feared: s.91R(1)(a) of the Act.

10. Fourth, an applicant’s fear of persecution for a Convention reason must be a ‘well-founded’ fear.  This adds an objective requirement to the requirement that an applicant must in fact hold such a fear.  A person has a ‘well-founded fear’ of persecution under the Convention if he has genuine fear founded upon a ‘real chance’ of being persecuted for a Convention stipulated reason.  A ‘real chance’ is one that is not remote or insubstantial or a far-fetched possibility.  A person can have a well-founded fear of persecution even though the probability of the persecution occurring is well below 50 per cent.

11. In addition, an applicant must be unable, or unwilling because of his fear, to avail himself of the protection of his country or countries of nationality.  The expression ‘the protection of that country’ in the second limb of Article 1A(2) is concerned with external or diplomatic protection extended to citizens abroad.   Internal protection is nevertheless relevant to the first limb of the definition, in particular to whether a fear is well-founded and whether the conduct giving rise to the fear is persecution.

12. Whether an applicant is a person in respect of whom Australia has protection obligations is to be assessed upon the facts as they exist when the decision is made and requires a consideration of the matter in relation to the reasonably foreseeable future.

    Complementary protection criterion

13. If a person is found not to meet the refugee criterion in s.36(2)(a), he may nevertheless meet the criteria for the grant of a protection visa if he is a non-citizen in Australia in respect of whom the Minister is satisfied Australia has protection obligations because the Minister has substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of the applicant being removed from Australia to a receiving country, there is a real risk that he will suffer significant harm: s.36(2)(aa) (‘the complementary protection criterion’).

14. ‘Significant harm’ for these purposes is exhaustively defined in s.36(2A): s.5(1).  A person will suffer significant harm if he will be arbitrarily deprived of his life; or the death penalty will be carried out on the person; or the person will be subjected to torture; or to cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment; or to degrading treatment or punishment.  ‘Cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment’, ‘degrading treatment or punishment’, and ‘torture’, are further defined in s.5(1) of the Act.

15. There are certain circumstances in which there is taken not to be a real risk that an applicant will suffer significant harm in a country.  These arise where it would be reasonable for the applicant to relocate to an area of the country where there would not be a real risk that the applicant will suffer significant harm; where the applicant could obtain, from an authority of the country, protection such that there would not be a real risk that the applicant will suffer significant harm; or where the real risk is one faced by the population of the country generally and is not faced by the applicant personally: s.36(2B) of the Act.

    Section 499 Ministerial Direction

16. In accordance with Ministerial Direction No.56, made under s.499 of the Act, the Tribunal is required to take account of policy guidelines prepared by the Department of Immigration –PAM3 Refugee and humanitarian - Complementary Protection Guidelines and PAM3 Refugee and humanitarian - Refugee Law Guidelines – and any country information assessment prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade expressly for protection status determination purposes, to the extent that they are relevant to the decision under consideration. 

    CONSIDERATION OF CLAIMS AND EVIDENCE

17. The applicant arrived in Australia without any travel document.  Since arrival, he has provided inconsistent claims regarding his name, citizenship date of birth and place of birth.  At interview, and at the hearing, he spoke in the Bangla language, the principal language spoken in Bangladesh.  Given this, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the Tribunal finds that the applicant is a citizen of Bangladesh.  Accordingly, the Tribunal will assess his claims as against that country.  There is no evidence to suggest that the applicant has any right to reside in any country other than Bangladesh.

18. The issue in this case is whether the applicant was a member and supporter of the Jamaat-e-Islami Party (JI) and, if so, whether he faces harm in Bangladesh at the hands of members of the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and, in particular, at the hands of his [relatives] [a number] of whom he claims support the AL and [a number] of whom he claims support the BNP] and who also have a dispute with him about land given to him by his (and their) father.  For the following reasons, the Tribunal has concluded that the decision under review should be affirmed.

    The applicant’s arrival in Australia

19. According to the decision under review (a copy of which the applicant provided to the Tribunal), the applicant arrived in Australia [in] May 2013 as an unauthorised maritime arrival.  He attended an entry interview with a departmental officer [in] June 2013.  A written record of that interview appears in the Department’s file at folios 81 to 91.  The Tribunal notes that it appears that part of the interview took place [in] June 2013 and the interview was concluded [in] June 2013.  The record of interview has been signed by the applicant, the interviewer, and an interpreter.

    Interpreters

20. In the early stages of the hearing, when the Tribunal was asking him about interviews which had taken place earlier, and his written statement of claims, the applicant said that there was an occasion when one of the interpreters used was a man from [country] and he did not fully understand that man’s dialect.  Initially, he seemed to suggest that the occasion in question was when he prepared his statement of claims with the assistance of his migration agent’s firm of lawyers.  However, when the Tribunal explored the matter, it became apparent that he was talking about one of the interviews with the Department.  Having listened to the interview conducted by the delegate in September 2014, the Tribunal is not aware of anything in that interview which suggested any significant miscommunication between the applicant and the delegate.  The applicant did not make any claim at the interview that he could not understand the interpreter. 

21. At the hearing, the Tribunal said that it would proceed on the basis that there was no difficulty with the interpretation in connection with the preparation of his statutory declaration containing his claims, but it asked the applicant’s migration agent to verify that the interpreter they engaged to assist in the preparation of the statutory declaration was not the man from [country] to whom the applicant had referred.  The Tribunal asked the agent to advise the Tribunal if that was not the case.  There has been no indication from the agent since the hearing calling into question the competence of the interpreter concerned.

22. The statutory declaration containing the applicant’s claims contains a declaration by the interpreter concerned that he had “accurately and completely interpreted the contents of (that) declaration from the English Language to the Bengali language” to the person who signed it.  The Tribunal also notes that, when the applicant was interviewed soon after his arrival in Australia, the written record of interview was signed by the applicant, the interviewer, and the interpreter.  Although there is no declaration of the kind in the statutory declaration, the applicant confirmed at the hearing that the written content of that interview was translated back to him before he signed it as a true record.

23. The applicant raised no objection to the interpreter used at the hearing, and there was nothing which suggested to the Tribunal that he had any difficulty communicating with the Tribunal through that interpreter. 

    The applicant’s claims

24. The applicant’s claims for protection were set out in his application form 866C,in a statutory declaration dated [in] August 2013 (at folios 32 to 35 of the Department’s file) and in other documents submitted in support of his application.  He elaborated on these claims in oral evidence given at an interview [in] September 2014.  A CD recording of that interview is located at folio 99 of the Department’s file.  The Tribunal has listened to that recording and is satisfied that the delegate’s summary of the applicant’s claims, appearing at pages 4 and 5 of the decision record, together with other references to details of his oral evidence set out elsewhere in the decision record, represents a fair précis of the applicant’s claims as they were put to the Department though there were some insignificant inaccuracies.  For example, on page 5 of the delegate’s decision record it states that the applicant started work on a farm with his father in 1993, whereas his claim was that he worked with [a relative]. 

25. In brief, the applicant claims that his relationship with his [relatives] has always been strained because of differences between [family members], and that their different political opinions have exacerbated the differences.  He claims that he has been beaten up by his [relatives] of on several occasions because of his support for JI.  He claims that, in particular, there were 2 incidents in early 2013 which preceded his departure from Bangladesh in April of that year.

26. He claims that, in January 2013, because he had attended a meeting led by a JI leader, the [relatives] who supported the AL came with other AL supporters to a shop he operated and beat him up.  As a result of this incident, he claims he closed to shop and stayed at home as much as possible.  He claims that a few weeks later, his [relatives] came to his house, forced their way in trashed the place and forced him of his land.  He claims that in fear for his life he moved with his family to his [Relative A]’s house, only to be found again by his [relatives].

    Claimed involvement in JI

27. In his oral evidence to the Tribunal, the applicant said that his mother had been a pious woman always prayed regularly.  She was acquainted with a local member of Parliament who was a local MP and this man used to come to her home for talks.  That man influenced him.  The Tribunal asked when he was first recognised as a supporter of JI.  He said that this was when he came back to his home village and took over the running of the shop in March 2010.  However, when the Tribunal asked when he first experienced difficulties with his [relatives] because of JI he said that was when he attended a meeting with the MP back in 2001 or 2002.

28. As indicated in the delegate’s decision record as provided to the Tribunal by the applicant, his answers to the delegate’s questions about the ideologies and policies of JI were not particularly detailed.  In written submissions dated 6 April 2016, the applicant’s agent stated that the applicant had “since clarified” one of his answers and suggested that his knowledge was greater than that of a typical citizen of Bangladesh. 

29. She also commented on the applicant’s reasons for not being eligible to vote in the last election which took place before he left Bangladesh.  At the hearing, the Tribunal asked the applicant about his failure to be enrolled to vote.  He said it was because he was not in his village when officials came to update the electoral rolls.  While the Tribunal accepts that this may be the May have been the case, it suggested that there would be many occasions when people might need to be added to the roll at times when officials were not visiting a particular area in a concerted effort to update the rolls. 

30. The Tribunal gave as an example the situation of the person who reached voting age between the last update of the rolls and an election.  It suggested that there would have to be some kind of mechanism to permit a person to register.  The applicant did not repeat the explanation he gave to the delegate (mentioned by the agent in her written submissions) that the process to apply involved “a lot of hassle” and that he would need to travel to Dhaka.  He simply said that he had no idea how one would go about enrolling.

31. At the hearing, the applicant said that he supported JI because he approved of its policies.  These included encouraging people to acquire knowledge of Islamic ways and to develop their character.  They also proposed creating a government promoted the welfare of the people.  While this is consistent with JI policy, the Tribunal considered his answers to be fairly superficial in nature.  The Tribunal asked whether he agreed that the BNP was also an Islamic party.  He said that that was true and indeed that the 2 parties were in alliance and were “the same.”  The Tribunal therefore asked him why, most of his [relatives] who supported the BNP would oppose him.  He said they took the side of AL because the AL was in government.

32. While the Tribunal accepts that the applicant has a preference for JI because of its Islamic focus, it does not accept that he has, or ever had, a public profile as a JI supporter.  At the hearing, he said he was not an official member of JI, or even an associate member.  He said he used to do some things for JI in the club, but accepted the Tribunal’s assessment that he was simply a person who thought JI were worth voting for.  However, as noted above, he was not sufficiently motivated to go out of his way to register to vote for them. 

33. The Tribunal has noted the evidence, in Appendix 1 of the submission dated 6 April 2016 by the applicant’s agent, regarding persecution of opponents of the AL government of Bangladesh.  However, given its conclusions above, the Tribunal does not accept that the applicant has or ever had such a profile that members of the AL, or indeed the BNP, would wish to seek him out to cause him harm for reasons of his political opinion.

34. Indeed, the applicant’s own claims make it clear that any alleged adverse attention to him on the grounds of political opinion were instigated by his [relatives], and not by other members of AL or the BNP.  He has not claimed  that he was ever the subject of adverse attention by members of AL or the BNP who were not acting in company with, or at the behest of, his [relatives].  The Tribunal is satisfied that, were he to return to Bangladesh, he would not be at risk from members either of those parties by reason only of his preference for JI.  As discussed with him at the hearing, his claims indicate that the essential and significant motivation for the persecution the applicant claims to fear is his [relatives’] alleged personal animosity towards him.  However as discussed in detail below, because of conflicts in evidence regarding specific alleged events, the Tribunal does not accept the applicant’s claims that he has experienced harm at the hands of his [relatives].

    Conflicts in evidence

35. The applicant’s claims have been fairly consistent in their general nature since he first arrived in Australia.  However, there have been a number of inconsistencies which the Tribunal regards as significant. 

    The applicant’s shop

1. In his oral evidence to the Tribunal, the applicant said that important people from JI used to meet him in his shop from time to time with the result that the shop was identified with JI.  He also claimed in his written statement of claims and in his oral evidence that, after a gathering in the village in which a JI leader campaigned for the party, his [relatives] who supported AL forced their way into his shop and beat him severely.  In his oral evidence to the Tribunal, he said his attack took place on Sunday [in] January 2013 at around 6 p.m.  The applicant claims that his [relatives] gave half of the shop to the AL around March 2013.  The shop therefore represents a key factor in the applicant’s claims.

2. In his oral evidence to the Tribunal he said that, in that shop, he sold [items].  He had said the same thing when interviewed by the delegate.  [Details deleted].  The Tribunal observed that the various items sold in the shop all appeared to be substances one would put in one’s mouth.  He agreed with this observation. 

3. In contrast, in his statutory declaration, he said that the shop in question was “[another type of] store.”  While the nature of the goods sold in the shop has no direct bearing upon the applicant’s claims regarding the attack which allegedly took place in the shop, or on the applicant’s claims that important people from JI used to meet him in his shop from time to time, the Tribunal considers that this conflict in evidence regarding the nature of the shop calls into question its very existence.  The Tribunal is therefore not satisfied that the applicant ever operated a shop in the [name] Bazaar as the applicant claims, and this undermines the credibility of his other claims.

   The applicant’s home and the alleged attack

4. In his written statement of claims, the applicant said that he built his house “a large tract of land” which his father had purchased in “approximately 2010.”  In his oral evidence at the hearing, the applicant said that his father had subdivided that land and had given a portion to each of his sons, having kept a portion for himself.  He said there was no formal document attesting to the transfer of a portion of the land to him. 

5. When asked when his father had purchased the land, the applicant said he could not remember because he was “little” at the time.  After the Tribunal tried to get an approximate idea of when the land was purchased, the applicant said that in fact the land had been inherited from his grandfather, not purchased.  While the precise timing of the acquisition of the land by the applicant’s father, and way in which the land was allegedly acquired is not of itself a significant factor, the Tribunal would have expected the applicant to have presented generally consistent evidence about these matters. 

6. In his written statement, the applicant said that the attack on his home took place “approximately 20 days” after the attack at the shop.  If this were correct, and given that he said the attack at the shop took place [in] January 2013, the attack on his home would have been [in] February 2013.  However, as he had previously told the delegate, he told the Tribunal that the attack on his house took place [in] March 2013.  Again, the precise date of the alleged attack on his house is not of itself significant in the context of the applicant’s general claims, but the Tribunal would expect the applicant to have given consistent evidence on this point.  The difference in timing calls into question the veracity of the applicant’s claim that such an attack took place.

7. Moreover, the applicant has given inconsistent evidence regarding the circumstances in which the alleged attack took place on the day in question.  At the hearing, he told the Tribunal that the attack took place around 2 p.m. He confirmed his written claim that, after the attack in the shop, he had kept the shop closed and had stayed at home as much as possible.  On the day in question, he had gone into the bazaar to see a doctor and get some medicine and then had returned home.  He had arrived home at around 1:45 or thereabouts, and his [relatives] attacked the house approximately 10 minutes later.

8. However, as the Tribunal discussed with the applicant at the hearing, he gave conflicting evidence on this point when he was interviewed by the delegate.  He told the delegate that the attack on his home took place around 5 to 5:30 p.m. on the day in question and that he heard about this attack while he was in his shop.  He said that people came to a shop and told him not to go home.  He said he did, however, go home but when he got there his [relatives] would not let him in.  Again, the hour of the day at which the attack took place, if it did take place, is not of itself important.  Similarly, whether he was in the house when the attack took place or came home afterwards is not important.  However, as the Tribunal pointed out to the applicant, the inconsistency of his evidence on these points undermines the credibility of his claim that such an incident took place.

   Departure from the applicant’s home village

9. The applicant claims that, following the alleged attack on his house, he went into hiding in his “[Relative A]’s house.”  He said this in paragraph 19 of his written statement of claims, and he repeated this claim in his oral evidence to the Tribunal.  As previously mentioned, according to his written claims the attack in his house took place some time in February 2013 whereas his oral evidence suggests this was in March 2013.  However, in an attachment to his application form giving details of his places of residence, he claimed to have been living in his [Relative A]’s house from January 2013 to April 2013.  This inconsistency further undermines the credibility of the applicant’s claims.

   Alleged incident at [Relative A]’s house

10. As noted in the previous paragraph, the applicant claims he went into hiding in his [Relative A]’s house. He told the Tribunal that, soon after he went there, his [relatives] (the AL supporters) came to his [Relative A]’s place early one morning to attack him with some local AL supporters but he was able to escape out of the window.

11. When the Tribunal pressed for details of this incident, the applicant said that he was not actually staying at his [Relative A]’s house at the time, but was living in another house a couple of doors away though still on land owned by his [Relative A].  He said that he heard the sounds of the attack and was able to escape and was later told by his [child] about who had turned up.  This account, however, is inconsistent with his written claims which make no mention of any attack on his [Relative A]’s house by any of his [relatives].

12. In his written statement (see paragraphs 19 to 22), the applicant said that soon after he went into hiding in his [Relative A]’s house, he came to know that his [relatives] were looking for him.  He knew this because AL supporters were making inquiries to find out whether he had been seen in the area of his [Relative A]’s village.  He said that he made arrangements to flee the country because he was frightened that it would be “only a matter of time” before his [relatives] located him and harmed him.  If his [relatives] had actually been aware of his presence at his [Relative A]’s property and had actually gone there to attack him, as he now claims, the Tribunal would have expected this to have been explicitly mentioned in his written statement of claims, prepared with the assistance of his migration agents.  The Tribunal infers from the wording of his statement that his claim was that, at the time he left Bangladesh, his [relatives] had not located him and had not come to his [Relative A]’s house.

13. This conflict of evidence undermines the credibility of the applicant’s claim that his [relatives] located him at his [Relative A]’s house, which he said was [distance] km away from their home village.

    The applicant’s fears of harm at the hands of his [relatives]

14. Given the conflicts in evidence discussed in paragraphs 35 to 48 above, the Tribunal finds that the applicant has fabricated the claims regarding the alleged attacks by his [relatives].  The Tribunal finds that the applicant is not a credible witness.  It therefore rejects his claims that his [relatives] have assaulted him on numerous occasions because of family animosities (arising from differences between [certain family members]) exacerbated by differences of political opinion.

15. In particular, the Tribunal finds that:

    ·the applicant did not operate a shop in the [name] bazaar;

    ·the applicant’s [relatives] and others did not assault him in January 2013 at a shop in the bazaar;

    ·the applicant [relatives] did not attack his home and eject him from it in March 2013 or at any other time in that year;

    ·the applicant was not forced to relocate to his [Relative A]’s home in early March 2013;

    ·the applicant’s [relatives] did not attack his [Relative A]’s home in March 2013 in an attempt to harm the applicant.

16. Further, given the Tribunal’s credibility concerns, it also finds that the applicant was not assaulted by his [relatives] at around the age of [age] as implied in the document [at folio 98 of the Department’s file] purporting to be a letter from his mother.

17. The Tribunal is therefore satisfied that, if he were to return to Bangladesh in the reasonably foreseeable future, he would not face harm at the hands of his [relatives], for any reason, including the reason of his political opinion or the reason of personal animosity.

18. At the hearing, the applicant said that, apart from the problems he claimed to have experienced because of his involvement with JI, and the family problems he had with his [relatives], there was no reason why he could not return to Bangladesh.  The Tribunal accepts this evidence and, given its conclusions in paragraphs 34 and 52 above, the Tribunal finds that the applicant does not have a well-founded fear of persecution in Bangladesh.

    Consideration of supporting documents

19. In reaching the above conclusions, the Tribunal has taken note of 4 documents submitted (3 to the Department and 1 to the Tribunal) by the applicant which, on their face, support his claims.  The applicant also submitted translations of these documents.

20. According to the translations, the 3 documents submitted to the Department were:

    ·an undated letter apparently written by his mother on a letterhead purporting to be that of the [location] district branch of JI, referring to quarrels between the applicant and his [relatives] and, in particular, to alleged incidents in January and March 2013;

    ·an undated document, the author of which is not stated, stating that the applicant’s [relatives] had found him and tried to kill him at his [Relative A]’s place; and

    ·an undated letter, purporting to have been written by an unnamed elected official, stating that the applicant had taken shelter at his [Relative A]’s house following mistreatment by his [relatives];

21. Each of these 3 documents appears to be unsigned.  Though there are signatures, handwriting and stamp impressions appearing on the documents they appear to be certifications by the people who translated the individual documents. 

22. The document submitted to the Tribunal purports to be a deed of sale of the shop which the applicant claims was sold to him by his father.

23. The Tribunal gives little weight to these 4 documents.  First, each of them identifies the applicant by three names, whereas the applicant is known by only the first two of those three names.  In his original application for protection and in other associated documents, he said he was known by only 2 given names with no family name.  And he said that he had not been known by any other names.  At the hearing, he confirmed to the Tribunal that he was only known by the 2 given names.

24. Second, as noted above, none of the first 3 letters is dated.  Third, the authors of the first 3 letters are not identified, though the text of the first letter indicates that the letter was written by the applicant’s mother [though is on JI letterhead, and there has been no claim by the applicant that she was a formal member of that organisation]. 

25. Fourth, the document purporting to be the deed of sale of the shop, refers to relatives of the applicant’s father being his “[children and] wife”.  As the applicant said that his father had [number] [children] including himself and [number] wives, the Tribunal accepts that the reference in English to “[children and] wife” may simply represent poor English on the part of the translator [there are numerous other errors of grammar and spelling] and that the original documents use the terms in quotations in the plural form.  [Details deleted].

    Conclusions

26. For the reasons given above, the Tribunal is not satisfied that the applicant is a person in respect of whom Australia has protection obligations under the Refugees Convention.  Therefore the applicant does not satisfy the criterion set out in s.36(2)(a).

27. Having concluded that the applicant does not meet the refugee criterion in s.36(2)(a), the Tribunal has considered the alternative criterion in s.36(2)(aa).  However, having rejected all the claims regarding the reasons the applicant claims to fear harm in Bangladesh, the Tribunal is not satisfied that the applicant is a person in respect of whom Australia has protection obligations under s.36(2)(aa).

28. There is no suggestion that the applicant satisfies s.36(2) on the basis of being a member of the same family unit as a person who satisfies s.36(2)(a) or (aa) and who holds a protection visa.  Accordingly, the applicant does not satisfy the criterion in s.36(2).

    DECISION

29. The Tribunal affirms the decision not to grant the applicant a Protection visa.

    Bruce MacCarthy
    

    Member