1809370 (Refugee)

This matter concerned a protection visa application made by a family of three Iraqi citizens. The applicants claimed to be of Arab ethnicity and Sunni Muslim religion. The first applicant, the mother, stated that she had last arrived in Australia in April 2016, having previously arrived in July 2014. The second and third applicants, her children, had not departed Australia since their arrival in 2014. The court was asked to review a decision made by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The primary legal issues before the court were whether there was a real chance that the applicants would be persecuted for one or more of the five prescribed reasons under section 5J(1)(a) of the Act, thereby meeting the refugee criterion in section 36(2)(a). If this criterion was not met, the court also considered whether there were substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of the applicants' removal to Iraq, they faced a real risk of suffering significant harm, thus satisfying the complementary protection criterion under section 36(2)(aa).

The court noted that the Tribunal was required to consider relevant guidelines and country information. The Tribunal's task involved assessing the applicants' claims against the criteria for both refugee protection and complementary protection. The court's review would focus on whether the Tribunal correctly applied these legal principles to the facts of the case. The decision under review was ultimately remitted.