Abebe v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs

[2000] FCA 533

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

ABEBE V MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS [2000] FCA 533

IMMIGRATION – no question of principle.

YENENEH TACHBELE ABEBE AND FITSUM TACHBELE ABEBE V MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS

NO. N 1102 OF 1999

JUDGE:         BEAUMONT J
DATE:           12 APRIL 2000
PLACE:         SYDNEY

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY	N 1102 OF 1999

BETWEEN:	YENENEH TACHBELE ABEBE AND FITSUM TACHBELE ABEBE APPLICANTS
AND:	MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS RESPONDENT
JUDGE:	BEAUMONT J
DATE OF ORDER:	12 APRIL 2000
WHERE MADE:	SYDNEY

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.The application be dismissed.

Note:    Settlement and entry of orders is dealt with in Order 36 of the Federal Court Rules.

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY	N 1102 OF 1999

BETWEEN:	YENENEH TACHBELE ABEBE AND FITSUM TACHBELE ABEBE APPLICANTS
AND:	MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS RESPONDENT

JUDGE:	BEAUMONT J
DATE:	12 APRIL 2000
PLACE:	SYDNEY

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

BEAUMONT J:

1. There are two applicants before the Court who have applied under a single application for an order of review.  The application relates to two similar and associated decisions of the Refugee Review Tribunal (“the Tribunal”), both made on 31 August 1999.  Although the Tribunal (Tribunal Member, Mr Giles Short) published separate reasons for each decision, it was appropriate that the application for an order of review be made in each instance in a combined form.

2. The applicants are brothers who came to Australia apparently to compete in a marathon event along with five other Ethiopian runners.  In the events that happened, none of them was able to compete.  All have made applications for protection visas.  The claims made in these two matters before the Tribunal were similar. 

3. There is in both cases an earlier history which can be briefly mentioned, that is, that the applicants’ application was considered by a differently constituted Tribunal on a previous occasion.  The applicants sought review of those decisions in this Court.  A Judge of the Court, by consent, ordered that the Tribunal’s decisions be set aside.  I do not know the basis for the making of those orders.  However, as was then ordered, the matter was referred back to the Tribunal and pursuant to that reference, the decisions the subject of the present application were made on 31 August 1999.

4. The applicants come from the Amhara ethnic group.  Each was born in Ethiopia.  Their father was an employee of the Ethiopian Government.  He was arrested by an Ethiopian anti-government group, held without trial for a substantial period and later died in goal.  The case made by the applicants before the Tribunal, in essence, was that they had joined an organisation with political aims and, in the course of the organisation’s activities, they distributed pamphlets and other papers, and made financial contributions and attended meetings on a regular basis.

5. They claimed refugee status under the Convention for combined reasons of race and political opinion.  The Tribunal analysed the material before it in some detail, having previously raised with the applicants, for the purpose of eliciting any comment the applicants wished to make, a number of reports of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on the situation in Ethiopia.  Pursuant to that opportunity, the first applicant wrote to the Tribunal by letter dated 9 July 1999 offering a number of comments on the material.  That letter is set out at pages 250 to 253 of Volume 2 of the relevant documents material. 

6. The applicants were represented by solicitors at one early stage in the matter, but were unrepresented before the Tribunal hearing held by Mr Short and were unrepresented in the hearing before this Court.

7. The first applicant produced a written submission, which I will have marked for identification “MFI 1”, in aid of the present application.  The thrust of that submission is that the Tribunal relied upon the material supplied by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but gave no weight to claims made by Amnesty International and another body known as Human Rights Watch.  The applicants contend, in the written submission, that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should not be regarded as an independent source of advice and it is said, for that reason, the approach taken by the Tribunal is flawed. 

8. In my opinion, there can be no basis for any suggestion of bias on the part of the Tribunal in the present matter, nor in my view, is there any foundation for the suggestion that the sources relied on by the Tribunal were not independent.  It is true that the material which the Tribunal thought persuasive was made available through departmental channels, but when that material is examined, it is clear that the information relied upon by the Tribunal depended for its credibility upon the assessment or judgment of sources, some of which were government sources, but many of which were non-government sources.  The matters about which these sources, government and non-government, were asked to express opinions, were clearly complex issues, factual in character, but requiring an assessment or judgment to be made from a whole range of information.  Examples of the kind of information in question may be seen in Volume 2 of the relevant documents material at pages 259–261, 266-267, 270, 275, 277-278, 282-283, 290-291 and 292-293. 

9. In my opinion, the Tribunal committed no error of law and no other reviewable error in relying upon this material.  None of it disclosed any particular interest or bias or prejudice on the part of any of the sources that could impair the present decision-making process.

10. That being so, the following comments made by Gummow and Hayne JJ in Abebe v The Commonwealth of Australia (1999) 162 ALR 1 at para 197, are apposite here:

    “In the end, the criticisms made by the applicant of the Tribunal’s reasoning are criticisms of the factual findings it made and are criticisms that fasten upon the weight that the Tribunal attributed to various pieces of information that it had available for consideration.  But what weight the Tribunal gave to those various pieces of information was for it to say.”

11. It must follow, in my opinion, that the application should be dismissed and I so order.

I certify that the preceding eleven (11) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice Beaumont.

Associate:

Dated:             May 2000

Solicitor for the Applicant:	Applicants appeared in person
Counsel for the Respondent:	S Lloyd
Solicitor for the Respondent:	Australian Government Solicitor
Date of Hearing:	24 March 2000
Date of Judgment:	12 April 2000