1515568 (Refugee)

The applicant sought review of a decision not to grant him a protection visa. The dispute concerned whether the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution or faced a real risk of significant harm if returned to Sudan, based on his claimed ethnicity, family origins, imputed political opinion, and past experiences of detention and torture. The matter was heard by the Tribunal.

The legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the applicant met the criteria for a protection visa under section 36(2)(a) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) as a refugee, or alternatively, under section 36(2)(aa) as a person to whom Australia owes complementary protection obligations. This required determining if the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, or if there were substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of his removal from Australia, he faced a real risk of significant harm.

The Tribunal found serious credibility concerns with the applicant's claims due to numerous inconsistencies and changes in his evidence regarding his alleged detention, family members' circumstances, and the reasons for his departure from Sudan. Specifically, the Tribunal noted discrepancies between his claims of continuous detention and evidence of contact with authorities, his shifting accounts of his relatives' fates, and his explanations for providing different reasons for leaving Sudan in previous visa applications. The Tribunal also considered country information regarding the general situation in Sudan, including ethnic conflicts and political instability, but found that the applicant's specific profile, as an Arab male who had lived in the capital city region and left Sudan legally, did not demonstrate a real risk of harm beyond general violence faced by the population. The Tribunal concluded that the applicant had not discharged the onus of proving he met the criteria for a protection visa.

The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the applicant a protection visa.