1704338 (Refugee)

The applicant sought review of a decision not to grant him a protection visa. The dispute concerned his claims of fearing persecution from loan sharks and gangsters in Malaysia, which he alleged would hunt and threaten him if he returned. He also claimed that the state could not protect him from such threats.

The court was required to determine the applicant's credibility and whether he had a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, as defined by the Migration Act 1958. This involved assessing the consistency and reliability of his oral evidence in comparison to his written claims.

The court found the applicant to be an unreliable witness. His oral evidence was vague and inconsistent with his protection visa application form. Specifically, his account of when and how he learned about a loan taken out by his wife, and his subsequent actions, created a confused and contradictory chronology. The court noted that the applicant had initially claimed the loan was his, but later stated it was his wife's, taken without his knowledge, and that he only discovered it after she left him. This contradicted his earlier assertion of finding out in September 2016. Furthermore, his claim that he planned to visit Australia for sightseeing even after learning of the loan, and that he was preparing for the trip before discovering the loan problem, undermined his claimed fear of persecution. The court concluded that these inconsistencies meant the applicant did not satisfy the criteria for a protection visa.

The decision under review, which affirmed the refusal to grant the applicant a protection visa, was affirmed.