Applicants S1580-2003 v MIMA & Anor

[2007] HCATrans 34

[2007] HCATrans 034

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Sydney  No S242 of 2006

B e t w e e n -

APPLICANTS S1580/2003

Applicants

and

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS

First Respondent

REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL

Second Respondent

Application for special leave to appeal

Publication of reasons and pronouncement of orders

GUMMOW J
HEYDON J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT CANBERRA ON THURSDAY, 8 FEBRUARY 2007, AT 9.24 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

GUMMOW J:   A delegate of the first respondent refused the application of the applicants, citizens of India, for protection visas.  The Refugee Review Tribunal affirmed that decision.  The Federal Court of Australia set the Tribunal’s decision aside.  The applicants claimed to fear persecution as Sikhs in the Punjab.  While the Tribunal accepted that the applicant husband may have been arrested on a number of occasions up to 1993, it considered that circumstances had changed.  And while the Tribunal was prepared to accept that the applicant wife had been raped by the police in 1993, it said that that was an isolated event unlikely to be repeated.  It therefore affirmed the delegate’s decision.

While the applicants obtained orders for judicial review from the Federal Court of Australia (Drummond J), an appeal against those orders to the Full Court of the Federal Court succeeded.

The applicants then commenced proceedings in this Court, attacking (unnecessarily) the first decision of the Tribunal, which the Federal Court had already set aside.  The proceedings in this Court were remitted to the Federal Court of Australia and dismissed by Emmett J.

The applicants then made an application to the Federal Magistrates Court for review of the Tribunal’s second decision.  This was dismissed by Scarlett FM.  The Federal Court of Australia (Moore J) dismissed an application for leave to appeal.

There are no prospects of success in any appeal were special leave to be granted.  The application must be dismissed.

Pursuant to r 41.10.5 we direct the Registrar to draw up, sign and seal an order dismissing the application for special leave.  I publish the disposition signed by Heydon J and myself.

AT 9.26 AM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED