1714497 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the protection visa application of an Iraqi national and his family. The applicant claimed to have faced threats and persecution due to his involvement with the Iraqi Electoral Commission and his disclosure of corruption to the Commission of Integrity. He feared arrest or death if returned to Iraq. The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicants met the criteria for a protection visa, specifically whether they qualified as refugees or were entitled to complementary protection.

The legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the applicant 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, and whether there were substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of removal from Australia, there was a real risk of significant harm. The Tribunal also considered the claims of the applicant's wife and children as members of the same family unit.

The Tribunal found that the applicant's claims were not substantiated by credible evidence. It noted the applicant's inconsistent account of his alleged hiding and continued employment, his lack of corroborating evidence for his claims of threats and his successor's disappearance, and his repeated voluntary returns to Iraq despite his alleged fear. The Tribunal concluded that the applicant's fear of persecution was not objectively held and that there was no real chance of him suffering serious harm if returned to Iraq. The Tribunal also considered, for completeness, the possibility of harm as a returning educated academic or due to having a Western education, but found no real risk in these regards, particularly given the country information indicating that such risks were low outside of ISIL-controlled areas and that the Iraqi government offered relocation assistance to returning scholarship students.

Ultimately, the Tribunal was not satisfied that the applicant met the refugee criterion under section 36(2)(a) of the Act, nor did it find substantial grounds for believing he would suffer significant harm, thus failing to meet the complementary protection criterion under section 36(2)(aa). Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the applicants protection visas.