1600644 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) considered the protection visa applications of two applicants from China. The dispute concerned whether the applicants met the criteria for a protection visa, specifically relating to fears of persecution based on their alleged adherence to the Yiguandao religion. The Tribunal had before it limited and outdated information, including the first applicant's statement from 2015, oral evidence from a Department interview in 2015, and the delegate's decision record which identified credibility concerns.

The primary legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the applicants had established a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of religion under section 5J(1) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth), and whether they met the complementary protection criterion under section 36(2)(aa) of the Act. This involved assessing the applicants' claimed practice and commitment to Yiguandao, their association with practitioners, and whether they had genuine fears of harm upon return to China. The Tribunal also considered the implications of the first applicant's departure from Australia in early 2018 on the assessment of the second applicant's claims.

The Tribunal was not satisfied that the applicants met the refugee criterion. It found that the available material did not establish that the second applicant was a Yiguandao practitioner, associated with practitioners, had been adversely affected by the treatment of family or friends in China, or had genuine fears of returning. Consequently, the Tribunal was not satisfied that the second applicant faced a real chance of harm arising from religious practices or any other reason, and therefore did not meet the definition of a refugee. Furthermore, the Tribunal considered the complementary protection criterion and concluded that there were no substantial grounds for believing that the applicants would suffer significant harm as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of removal to China.

Accordingly, the Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the applicants protection visas, finding that they did not satisfy the criteria under section 36(2) of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth).