Adam and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship)

[2021] AATA 2109

Adam and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship) [2021] AATA 2109 (4 June 2021)

Division:GENERAL DIVISION

File Number(s):2020/3916      

Re:Nura Ibrahim Adam  

APPLICANT

AndMinister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs

RESPONDENT

DECISION

Tribunal:Member M Kennedy

Date:4 June 2021

Place:Adelaide

The Tribunal affirms the decision under review.

…………….…[SGND]…………………

Member M Kennedy

Catchwords

CITIZENSHIP – application for citizenship by conferral – application for citizenship refused – whether Tribunal is satisfied applicant is of good character – inconsistency in evidence – credibility – good character not satisfied – application not approved

Legislation

Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth)

Cases

BOY19 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2019] FCA 574

Nguyen v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2018] AATA 1082

REASONS FOR DECISION

Member M Kennedy

4 June 2021

Introduction

1. This review is concerned with the refusal of an application for Australian citizenship by conferral on the grounds that the Minister was not satisfied that the applicant, Ms Adam, was of good character.  Essentially, it is argued that I ought not be satisfied that Ms Adam is of good character because she is alleged to have procured and presented a counterfeit foreign driver’s licence to an Australian government department, and is alleged to have provided incorrect answers to questions posed in her application for Australian citizenship concerning military service outside Australia.

2. There is a single issue for determination by the Tribunal in this matter: am I satisfied that Ms Adam is of good character? This question arises in Ms Adam’s case by virtue of paragraph 21(2)(h) of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth) (the Act) which provides that a person is eligible to become an Australian citizen if the Minister is satisfied that the person is of good character at the time of the Minister’s decision on the application.  If I am not so satisfied, the application for Australian citizenship must be refused.

   Overview

3. I have found the observations of the Federal Court in BOY19 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2019] FCA 574 (BOY19) to be instructive as to the context and concept of good character in citizenship matters, and the standard of satisfaction upon which my decision must turn. In that matter, at paragraph 51, the court distilled three principles from earlier authorities about the meaning of the expression “good character”. First, the phrase “good character” refers to the enduring moral qualities of a person and not to the good standing, fame or repute of that person within the community (although the latter may be evidence of the former). Second, the expression does not have a fixed and precise content, but rather imports a discretionary value judgement to be made by reference to undefined factual matters confined only by the subject matter, scope and purpose of the statutory provisions. Third, and as a corollary to the second, judgement is required as to whether any proved deficiencies in the moral qualities of a person are sufficient to deny the person citizenship.

4. In this matter, the basis on which Ms Adam’s good character is put in issue turns on two factual controversies that I must settle.  Having reflected on the evidence and submissions of the parties, I now focus them as follows: first, I must decide whether Ms Adam knowingly produced a counterfeit Egyptian driver’s licence to licensing authorities in South Australia. Second, I must decide whether Ms Adam provided false information in answers to questions in official forms accompanying her application for a grant of Australian citizenship and (because in her evidence to me she maintains that the answers were correct) gave false evidence to me in the course of these proceedings about those matters.

5. For reasons which I shall elaborate on later in this statement, I have determined those factual controversies by concluding that I am not satisfied that Ms Adam knowingly produced a counterfeit Egyptian driver’s licence to licensing authorities in South Australia, but I do find that Ms Adam has made false statements in her application for Australian citizenship and has made false statements to me in the course of the hearing of this review about those matters.

6. The second and third principles identified in BOY19 then become determinative. I must decide whether the incorrect answers and false evidence amount to deficiencies in the moral qualities of Ms Adam sufficient to deny her citizenship.  I have found the exercise of that aspect of judgement to be very difficult in this case.  I have ultimately concluded that providing false statements in an application for Australian citizenship and in sworn evidence in review proceedings amounts to a deficiency in Ms Adam’s moral qualities that, in the context of the Act, is sufficient to amount to a finding that I am not satisfied that she is of good character.

   Background

7. Ms Adam was born in Eritrea in 1983.  Eritrea has been beset by conflict both pre and post its independence from Ethiopia in 1993.  Ms Adam left Eritrea for Sudan when she was 2 years old and returned to the country after independence. Ms Adam’s father was in the military but was arrested in 2001and has not been heard from since. Ms Adam and her older sister were then raised by their mother.  She lived on a family farm in the countryside around Nakfa. Her sister remains in Africa.  Her mother passed away in 2020.

8. When Ms Adam was 19, she travelled to Asmara with her mother to obtain medicine.  She was caught in a roundup by Eritrean soldiers looking for people who did not have military service identity. Ms Adam was taken to the Sawa national military training centre.  The activities Ms Adam undertook at Sawa form the second of the two factual controversies I must resolve.

9. Ms Adam said that between 2002 and 2011 she had no contact with her mother, who did not know where she was. As part of ‘national service’ (which the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have described as amounting to enslavement), Ms Adams was transferred to different sites within Eritrea to perform menial tasks for military personnel. At one location, she met a woman visiting her daughter who knew Ms Adam’s aunt in Asmara.  Ms Adam’s mother and aunt went to the facility and arranged permission for Ms Adam to visit her family for ten days.  Ms Adam returned to the military facility out of fear that escaping would be dangerous for her family. In July 2011, Ms Adam became ill and was taken to hospital.  A doctor who knew her father arranged for her transfer to Asmara. Her aunt visited her in hospital and assisted the applicant to orchestrate her escape. By August 2011, the applicant had been connected with a smuggler who took her to Sudan. In April 2012, Ms Adam engaged a smuggler to take her to Egypt.  She arrived in Aswan on 26 April 2012.

10. Ms Adam lived in Egypt until she migrated to Australia on 14 January 2015 as the secondary holder of a Refugee (Offshore) (Class XB) (Subclass 200) visa.  In Egypt she married Mr Hassan who was the primary visa holder.  Ms Adam was recognised as a refugee by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Egypt. Ms Adam was interviewed by the UNHCR for the purpose of resettlement.  Detailed records are available to the Tribunal from that interview.  Most of the content of the interview summary is not in issue, but a key part of it is in relation to Ms Adam’s account of her activities at Sawa. The part that is in issue pertains to the following text attributed to information given by Ms Adam at that interview:

    In Sawa military camp the PRA (Principle Resettlement Applicant)’s wife received basic military training which included physical exercises, use of gun, assembling and dissembling guns for six months. After completing, basic training the conscripted soldiers, including the PRA’s wife started their 12^th grade studies. (sic)

11. Ms Adam has given evidence regarding taking driving lessons and obtaining a driver’s licence while living in Egypt.  Ms Adam’s evidence about these matters is put in issue by the respondent.  It forms part of the first of the two factual controversies I must resolve.

12. When Ms Adam migrated to Australia she initially settled in Tasmania. She decided to move to South Australia in 2018. In South Australia, Ms Adam pursued obtaining her driver’s licence. She swapped her Tasmanian learner’s permit for a South Australian one. She asked to be given a full South Australian driver’s licence on the basis that she held an Egyptian driver’s licence and presented a copy of the driver’s licence she says she obtained in Egypt. The Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure asked her to provide the original.

13. Something about that document aroused suspicion.  The South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure referred the document to the Department of Home Affairs for examination. A document examiner concluded that the purported Egyptian licence was counterfeit and advised the South Australian authorities accordingly. The counterfeit licence was not returned to Ms Adam.

14. Ms Adam applied for a grant of Australian citizenship by conferral on 3 June 2019. 

15. Ms Adam attended an interview on 11 September 2019.  The issue about the driver’s licence was raised with her in some way, because she subsequently made a statement in relation to it. Ms Adam was asked to complete a Form 80 character assessment form.  This form was returned to the Department on 14 October 2019.  At question 36, Ms Adam answered “no” to the question: “have you…ever served in a military force, police force, state sponsored/private militia or intelligence agency (including secret police)?” Ms Adam also answered “no” to the question “have you…ever undergone any military/paramilitary training, been trained in weapons/explosives or in the manufacture of chemical/biological products?” Ms Adam did not complete question 37 which asks, “have you undertaken any military service?” The question provides examples of military service as including “compulsory, conscription” and “military training.”

16. At Part T of the form, Ms Adam addressed the issue of the licence.  She stated to the effect that she had obtained the licence in Cairo in 2014 after some driving lessons and following a test. Her statement did not mention that the document had been retained by the South Australian government.

17. On 13 March 2020, the Department of Home Affairs wrote to Ms Adam to inform her that it was considering refusing her application for citizenship on the grounds of character and identity.

18. On 19 June 2020, a delegate of the respondent decided to refuse the application for a grant of Australian citizenship on the grounds that the delegate was not satisfied Ms Adam was of good character, relying on the issue concerning the production of a counterfeit driver’s licence. The delegate was satisfied as to Ms Adam’s identity (that matter is not in issue in this review).

19. Ms Adam applied to the Tribunal for review of the decision on 30 June 2020.  The issue regarding discrepancies between the visa application paperwork and the citizenship application paperwork was raised in these proceedings as a further issue going to character.

    The driver’s licence issue

20. Ms Adam accepts that the driver’s licence she produced to the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure is counterfeit. The counterfeit nature of the document is established to my satisfaction by the Document Examination Case Report dated 11 March 2021 prepared and lodged at my request, but containing further detail about the information that resulted in advice being provided to the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure by the Department of Home Affairs in response to its request for document examination in January 2019.

21. A few aspects of the document itself are necessary to set out, as it was submitted by the respondent that Ms Adam should have known (and implicitly did know) that the document was counterfeit the day she got it.  In this regard, the document does not contain information in the relevant fields for the holder’s date of birth or place of birth. It is unnecessary to recount other aspects of the document that led the document examiner to conclude the document was counterfeit.

22. Ms Adam completed a statutory declaration on 19 August 2020 addressing, among other things, the circumstances in which she obtained the counterfeit licence. This topic was also the subject of extensive examination-in-chief and cross-examination.

23. Ms Adam stated she obtained the licence through an instructor she referred to as ‘Amu’ (uncle), although she did not know his actual name. Ms Adam said that during her time in Cairo she had secured some work providing childcare and cleaning, and seen people arrive in ‘tuk-tuk’ like vehicles to collect their children. She had seen a sign on top of a car advertising training and had asked the instructor if she could get lessons. She was told the lessons would cost 50 Egyptian pounds each.

24. Ms Adam said she discussed this with her husband who agreed that having a licence would be good. Ms Adam said she had around 10 lessons and then paid 250 Egyptian pounds for the test and licence. She agreed that in total she paid around 750 Egyptian pounds for the lessons and licence. She said she wasn’t expecting the process to cost this much and wouldn’t have started if she had known. Ms Adam said she had trusted Amu and saw a lot of people learning to drive with him.

25. Ms Adam said in response to questions that at the time she and her husband paid around 600 Egyptian pounds in rent per month, and her husband might earn between 40 Egyptian pounds and 100 Egyptian pounds per day, but some days he would not have any work. The United Nations gave her husband around 450 Egyptian pounds per month.

26. Ms Adam said that she did not commonly see Egyptian drivers’ licences while living in Egypt. When Amu gave her the licence, she checked her name and saw the stamp, and that was it.  She wasn’t expecting it to be a fake licence, and at the time intended to use it to improve her life in Egypt. The respondent took Ms Adam to some inconsistencies between her statutory declaration, where she described being told that she could use the licence in the next country she settled in, and her belief that it would be easier to learn to drive in Egypt given her familiarity with Arabic as against learning to drive in a Western country, and her oral evidence to the effect that her purpose in obtaining the licence was only to improve her life in Egypt.

27. Ms Adam told me she never used the licence in Egypt.  She said that she was attacked and assaulted in the street after obtaining it and from that point was scared to go out. She also stopped going to work at this time. At about the same time, the United Nations told her she was to be resettled overseas and then that process took up all her time and became the focus.

28. In cross-examination, and ultimately in submissions, the respondent put to Ms Adam that she had spent two months’ income on the licence, had not made proper enquiries about the instructor, and then had not used the licence despite the investment in time and money.  It was also put to Ms Adam that she could not have been confident about the document given it did not contain her date of birth or place of birth. Ms Adam restated her evidence about the change in circumstances in Egypt, and stated it was the first time she had ever held a licence so did not know what should be on it.

29. The respondent questioned Ms Adam as to when she first found out the licence was fake and submitted I should reject out of hand her answer that it was when she consulted with her solicitor in these proceedings. The respondent submitted that Ms Adam should have known the licence was fake because it was an inherently suspicious document, and she must have known it was fake since 11 September 2019 when the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure had retained the document and required her to complete ‘GLS’ (Graduated Licensing Scheme) which had been the process Ms Adam had hoped to avoid by producing the licence. In this regard, I have noted that none of the correspondence sent to Ms Adam by the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure expressly informed her that the licence had been identified as counterfeit. The respondent contends that when Ms Adam completed the statement in her Form 80 character assessment regarding the licence, she ought to have mentioned that the document had been retained for investigation.

30. In submissions, the respondent asked that I conclude that Ms Adam’s evidence concerning how and why she procured the licence in Egypt was unsatisfactory and should raise questions about the entire topic. It was submitted that if Ms Adam at any time prior to producing the licence to the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure knew the licence was fake or had been wilfully blind to that possibility, then the production of such a document to a government department should stand in the way of me being satisfied that she is of good character. Furthermore, it was submitted that Ms Adam’s failure to mention that the licence had been taken from her by the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure in providing further information about the matter in her Form 80 character assessment reflected poorly on her credit.

31. On behalf of Ms Adam, it was submitted that she did not know the licence was counterfeit at the time she produced it to the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure, and Ms Adam had in fact been the victim of fraud in Egypt in the circumstances surrounding the driving lessons and licence. It was submitted that the concerns regarding the validity of the licence only came up much later. It was submitted that whether or not Ms Adam ‘knowingly’ produced the fake licence is an important distinction, and there is no clear evidence that she did know the licence was fake, despite this matter being placed under the microscope. I accept that, in order for the production of a counterfeit licence to be relevant to an assessment of character, the element of knowledge is essential.

32. Ultimately, despite the legitimate observations by the respondent, I cannot confidently conclude that the evidence given by Ms Adams as to the circumstances in which she procured the counterfeit licence is so inherently implausible that it must be rejected.  At the core of Ms Adam’s account, I consider it is plausible that an Eritrean refugee in Cairo might see that obtaining a driver’s licence as one of a few ways reasonably open to improve their living conditions, and would be vulnerable to being taken advantage of in these circumstances. I accept that Ms Adam would not have reasonably been able to identify those  flaws in the document now brought to her attention indicating that it was counterfeit given her life experiences to that point. The circumstances which then converged to stop Ms Adams from using the licence are also plausible and corroborated to a degree by the UNHCR resettlement analysis, which recounts Ms Adam’s account of being attacked in Cairo.

33. In this way, each aspect of Ms Adam’s account of obtaining the licence that formed the basis of the respondent’s submission that the account should be wholly rejected is the subject of a plausible explanation.  Having considered the accumulation of those matters, I remain unsatisfied to say that the account is implausible and is to be rejected.

34. Turning to the inconsistencies between Ms Adam’s oral evidence, her statutory declaration and the content of her Form 80 concerning the driver’s licence, I have not found those matters conclusive. I am not persuaded to place adverse determinative weight on inconsistencies between the applicant’s account of her motivations in obtaining a driver’s licence, and the prospects of using the licence in a resettlement country, where the evidence relates to a state of mind regarding two motivations that are not inconsistent with each other as held by Ms Adam in 2014.

1. As to Ms Adam’s failure to disclose that the counterfeit licence was the subject of investigation and had not been returned to her at the time she completed the Form 80 on 3 October 2019, I do not consider this establishes that Ms Adam knew the licence was counterfeit when she produced it, or was attempting to conceal any problem emerging about the document from the Department of Home Affairs.  As I have observed above, there is no clear expression from the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure to the effect that the document has been found to be counterfeit.  The content of the statement regarding this topic in the Form 80 is, with respect, in very poor English and directed at the circumstances in which Ms Adam procured the document, and does not address whether she suspects it is counterfeit or what has happened to the document.

2. After considering all the evidence about the counterfeit licence, I have concluded that I am not satisfied that Ms Adam knew the licence was counterfeit when she produced it to the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure. In this way, I do not consider that her actions in doing so speak to her enduring moral qualities through a willingness to produce counterfeit documents to government departments.

   The military training issue

3. In her evidence-in-chief, Ms Adam described her activities at Sawa national military training centre as cooking and providing food and water – essentially catering for other students.  Ms Adam said that she commenced at Sawa but was also taken to other sites.

4. In her statutory declaration of 30 September 2020, Ms Adam draws attention to the answers she provided in her application for a global humanitarian visa[1].  In that application form, I note that in response to question 32the reader is referred to the ‘UNHCR referral’, in response to the question whether any person in the application had served in a military organisation, but at question 39, the applicant had marked “no” to the question as to whether “any person had served in a military force…undergone military/paramilitary training or been trained in weapons/explosives use”. In this regard, Ms Adam states that she has been consistent in that she answered the questions in her visa application form and her citizenship Form 80 in the same way. Ms Adams points out that she did not have legal representation at the time she applied for the global humanitarian visa or Australian citizenship.

   [1] Respondent’s Tender Bundle, TB1, pages 1 – 22.

5. Ms Adams states that in relation to the discrepancy between her visa application form (and I infer the citizenship Form 80), Ms Adams states that she had an interrupted education.  As to her time at Sawa, she said that she would undertake physical fitness.  She said boys and sometimes girls would be trained with guns, but she was too small and weak to hold a gun.  Ms Adam says that now she has read the UNHCR resettlement registration form, she has noted it is not accurate because she did not hold a gun and was not trained to use one. In relation to the questions posed of her regarding military training, she did not think her experience warranted a “yes”.

6. Under cross-examination, Ms Adam’s attention was drawn to her examination-in-chief where she had described wearing a uniform while in hospital prior to her escape.  Ms Adam explained she was referring to a hospital uniform rather than a military uniform.  I consider too much was lost in the nuances of translation for me to place any particular weight on this exchange. 

7. It was expressly put to Ms Adam during cross-examination that she had undertaken military training given what she had told the UNHCR, and that she was now describing her activities at Sawa in a way to justify the incorrect answer she had given in her citizenship application.  This was denied by Ms Adam, who stated she had never told the UNHCR interviewer that she had undertaken military training or trained with guns.

8. I took Ms Adam to the content of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Country Information Report on Eritrea[2] where it states that since 2003, all students completing their 12^th and final year of school have been required to do so at the residential Sawa national military training centre, which includes six months of military training. Ms Adam said that was not what had happened to her. Later in the report, under the heading ‘National Service Coscripts’ it states that “all Eritreans are required to undergo some military training, regardless of their national service role”.

   [2] Respondent’s Second Tender Bundle, 2TB1, pages 3 – 34.

9. It was put to Ms Adam that other details she has provided about her experience at Sawa was corroborated in the DFAT report, including mistreatment, harsh conditions and a compulsion to serve indefinitely. Ms Adam said that she did not agree with the content of the report regarding everyone being compelled to undertake military service.

10. Later in the proceedings, I took care to explain to Ms Adam that it did not appear to be the case that undertaking military service was necessarily a problem for the respondent, but the respondent considered she had provided false information in her application for citizenship, and that in itself was the problem.  I am satisfied that Ms Adam understood the nuance. She maintained her evidence that she had not undertaken any military training or been trained in the use of firearms.

11. I have decided that I cannot accept Ms Adam’s evidence in this regard on that point. My rejection of her evidence is the product of comparing her evidence not only with the DFAT country information report on Eritrea that is very clear in the information it conveys in that regard, but primarily because Ms Adam is recorded as providing very specific information about her military training to the UNHCR.  In no way is the UNHCR documented account of Ms Adam’s description of her time at Sawa template in nature. It details specific dates, numbers and details such that the reference to the use of guns, assembling and dissembling guns and completing the basic training for conscripted soldiers must, in my view, have come from her description.  The fact that the DFAT information in this regard is so clear reinforces my conclusion that the information Ms Adam gave to the UNHCR about her experiences at Sawa is accurate.

12. The inevitable next conclusion is that Ms Adam answered the relevant questions in her Form 80 for her citizenship application falsely. It is also inevitably the case that I have formed the view that Ms Adam’s sworn evidence to me in these proceedings on this very specific issue was false. I have considered very carefully whether the evidence provided in this regard could be the result of misunderstanding or differing perceptions as to what serving in a military force or undergoing military training or being trained in weapons might involve. On reflection, however, great care was taken to put to Ms Adam the information that contradicted her evidence, including her own previous inconsistent statements, and she has maintained evidence which I do not accept.

13. I was open to considering whether it was the case that the relevant parts of the form simply were not understood or completed with sufficient care at the time they were completed. At the end of the day, the form invites a person to simply tick a series of boxes, and it may well be a natural (albeit unacceptable) temptation simply to mark all the boxes in a way that provides the path of least resistance to the desired outcome.  Carelessness does not necessarily go to character. There was opportunity for such an explanation to be put forward in the proceedings, but it was not.  Ms Adam’s unequivocal evidence to the Tribunal was that she did not engage in military training or weapons training, and I have rejected this evidence. I am quite satisfied that she did engage in such training, as she described in the account she gave to the UNHCR.

14. I find therefore that Ms Adam has provided false information in her Form 80 for the citizenship application and has not provided truthful evidence on oath to the Tribunal on that topic, in the context of a review of a decision to refuse the grant of Australian citizenship.

    Other matter

15. In the course of proceedings, the respondent also put forward a case that Ms Adam had provided inconsistent information about her educational qualifications.  This contention was only nominally maintained in final submissions.

16. Ms Adam was cross-examined extensively about the statements she had made from time to time regarding her education in Eritrea and Sudan.  Without recounting the detail of those alleged inconsistencies, I was not satisfied that it was established to any degree of clarity that Ms Adam’s statements about her education were manifestly inconsistent.  Nuances regarding informal religious education and the progress through the highly disrupted Eritrean education system were lost in translation, with the consequence that I am not satisfied there is any material inconsistency in Ms Adam’s account of these matters.

    Conclusions as to character

17. I have taken into account a number of statements provided by witnesses regarding their experiences and opinions of Ms Adam’s character.

18. I note that Ms Adam has recently been offered employment as a disability carer, and the witness, Mr Haj Ali, has explained and justified why he considers Ms Adam to be a person of good character. 

19. I have taken into account that Ms Adam was observed to hold admirable qualities in supervising a casual workforce of up to 50 people from many different cultures when working for Tasfarm as a fruit picker, and that her criminal antecedent report is completely clear. I accept that Ms Adam has not engaged in any criminal conduct in Australia and is generally held in high regard by people with whom she has come in contact in Australia.

20. As observed in BOY19, however, my role is not to assess only whether Ms Adam is held in good standing, fame or repute. I am to assess whether Ms Adam has enduring moral qualities by reference to matters confined only by the subject matter, scope and purpose of the statutory provisions, and I am to assess whether any proved deficiencies in the moral qualities of a person are sufficient to deny her citizenship.

21. In Ms Adam’s case, I face a conclusion that Ms Adam has provided a false answer to an important question in official forms for her character assessment and has maintained that false answer in these proceedings in her sworn evidence.

22. As I observed to the Minister’s counsel in submissions, it is uncomfortable to note that the most cogent evidence as to the falsity of the answer given in the Form 80 was the more specific and detailed prior inconsistent statement about the military training that was already held by the Commonwealth at the time Ms Adam provided her false answers. To put this another way, to the extent that participation in military training is of concern to the Commonwealth, Ms Adam had fully disclosed her participation. It is also uncomfortable to note that the military training that I have found Ms Adam did in fact participate in is military training that has been recognised to amount to a form of slavery, has caused a significant amount of trauma and disruption to Ms Adam’s life,  and indeed formed the very basis upon which Australia offered her a place in its global humanitarian programme. This is why I have found the last judgment to be made under the tests set out in BOY19 to be such a difficult judgement to make in this case.

23. In this regard, I must decide whether the proved deficiencies in the moral qualities of Ms Adam, specifically the false information and evidence about participating in military training while at Sawa, is sufficient to deny her citizenship.

24. After reflecting on this issue for some time, I have reached the conclusion that the provision of false evidence under oath in the Tribunal on a matter of focused, central and determinative importance is not consistent with being of good character given the context and purpose of the Act. On the question of involvement in military training and training in the use of weapons, I consider that maintaining false evidence in that regard is unacceptable.  As the Tribunal has held in Nguyen v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2018] AATA 1082, citizenship cannot be awarded on the basis of false statements and there are no excuses for making false statements in this regard.

    Decision

25. I am not satisfied that Ms Adam is of good character for the purpose of paragraph 21(2)(h) of the Act. It follows she is not eligible for the grant of Australian citizenship, and her application must not be approved.

I certify that the preceding fifty-nine (59) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for the decision herein of Member M Kennedy

…………………[SGND]……………………….

Administrative Assistant Legal

Dated: 4 June 2021

Dates of hearing:	22 February 2021, 15 April 2021 and 16 April 2021
Representative for the Applicant:	Luke Edwards, Work Visa Lawyers
Representative for the Respondent:	Sam Cummings, Sparke Helmore Lawyers