1921395 (Refugee)

This case concerned an application for a protection visa by a Malaysian citizen who claimed to fear harm from illegal money lenders in his home country. The applicant arrived in Australia in October 2018 and had been engaged in work since then. His claims for protection were initially lodged by friends who assisted him in completing the application, and he stated he was unaware of the specific contents of that initial application. Subsequently, he provided an updated statement of claims, prepared with the assistance of his employer and translated via Google Translate.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicant met the criteria for a protection visa, specifically whether he was a refugee within the meaning of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) and the associated regulations. This required the Tribunal to determine if the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason, or if he faced serious harm on complementary protection grounds, and crucially, whether effective protection measures were available to him in Malaysia.

The Tribunal accepted that the applicant had borrowed money from illegal money lenders in Malaysia and that the debt had significantly increased. It also accepted that people who borrow from such lenders could constitute a particular social group and that there was a real chance the applicant would suffer serious physical harm if he returned to Malaysia, given the threats and harassment directed at his mother and the potential for physical harm to him. However, the Tribunal found that effective protection measures were available to the applicant in Malaysia. This conclusion was based on the applicant's own evidence that he had approached the police in 2015 regarding the money lenders, and while no charges were pressed at that time because no physical harm had yet occurred to his mother, the police did attend the property. The Tribunal inferred from this that police protection was accessible.

Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the decision under review, finding that despite the real chance of serious harm, the availability of effective protection measures in Malaysia meant the applicant did not meet the criteria for a protection visa.