1708746 (Refugee)

This matter concerned an application for a protection visa by a person from Somalia. The applicant claimed to be a member of minority tribes within Somalia, alleging discrimination, killings of family members, and internal displacement. The applicant had previously been accepted as a refugee in a third country and arrived in Australia on a partner visa. The dispute before the Tribunal centred on whether the applicant faced persecution due to tribal discrimination, both from his wife's family and community, and whether state protection was available or relocation reasonable in the fragile state of Somalia.

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) (the Act), which requires the Minister to be satisfied that Australia has protection obligations under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. This involved determining if the applicant had a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. Alternatively, if the applicant did not meet the refugee criterion, the Tribunal was to consider whether he met the complementary protection criterion under section 36(2)(aa) of the Act, which requires substantial grounds for believing there is a real risk of significant harm as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of removal to Somalia.

The Tribunal considered the applicant's claims of tribal discrimination and the country information regarding the status of minority tribes in Somalia, the fragility of the state, and the availability of state protection. Applying the principles of the Refugees Convention and relevant guidelines, the Tribunal was satisfied that the applicant was a person in respect of whom Australia had protection obligations under the Convention. Consequently, the Tribunal found that the applicant satisfied the criterion set out in section 36(2)(a) of the Act. The Tribunal remitted the matter for reconsideration with the direction that the applicant satisfies section 36(2)(a).