1804721 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) considered the protection visa application of an applicant and his children. The applicant claimed he was targeted by the Quds Force and Iranian Secret Services due to his refusal to assist them with his employment access in [Country 1]. He feared arrest, torture, and prosecution upon return to Iran or [Country 1]. The dispute centred on whether the applicant and his children met the criteria for a protection visa.

The primary legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of imputed political opinion, and whether his children, as members of the same family unit, were also owed protection. Specifically, the Tribunal had to determine if the applicant's fear of being arrested as an Iranian agent and facing torture or execution in Iran, or being persecuted by Iranian authorities and the Quds Force in [Country 1], constituted a well-founded fear of persecution. The Tribunal also needed to consider if the applicant's children qualified for protection based on their membership in the same family unit as the applicant, given that the Tribunal had previously found the children to be owed protection in a separate decision concerning their mother.

The Tribunal reasoned that while the applicant had not explicitly raised protection concerns for his children in his own application, they had been included in both parents' applications. Crucially, the Tribunal had already determined in a separate decision that the applicant's children were owed protection under section 36(2)(a) of the *Migration Act 1958*. Applying section 36(2)(b) of the Act, the Tribunal found that the applicant was a member of the same family unit as his children. The Tribunal also considered that section 91WB of the Act did not preclude the granting of a visa to the applicant in these circumstances.

Consequently, the Tribunal remitted the matter for reconsideration. The directions included that the applicant's children satisfy section 36(2)(a) of the *Migration Act*, and that the primary applicant satisfy section 36(2)(b)(i) of the Act by being a member of the same family unit as the applicant children.