BLJ16 v Minister for Immigration

Case

[2017] FCCA 2278

19 September 2017


FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA

BLJ16 v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & ANOR [2017] FCCA 2278
Catchwords:
MIGRATION – Protection visa application – applicant is son of devout Hindu parents – fears of harm by reason of intolerance for applicant’s Australian lifestyle and his association with non-Hindu persons – applicant fails to attend Departmental interview – Tribunal decision to affirm delegate’s decision refusing application grounded on adverse credibility findings, no risk of harm and delay in making application – consent orders to set down hearing – ground seeking merits-based review rejected – ground claiming denial of opportunity before Tribunal to present evidence of medical problem rejected – no further evidence adduced before Court – self-represented litigant articulate and fluent in English and Punjabi – approach to determination of application –                  re-examination of materials and decision – no other grounds identified.

Legislation:

Migration Act 1958 (Cth), ss.5A, 5H, 5J, 36, 56, 59, 65, 66, 73, 351, 412, 415, 427, 430, 474, 476

AMF15 vMinister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] 241 FCR 30
Anandaraj Subrumaniam v MIMA (unrep’ FCA, 10 March 1998)
ARG15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] FCAFC 174
Attorney-General v Quin (1990) 170 CLR 1
BJN16 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (No 2) [2017] FCCA 1512
BSJ16 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2017] FCAFC 78
CQG15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] FCAFC 146
JL v Department of Family and Community Services [2015] NSWCA 88
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v MZAIV [2016] FCA 251
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Singh (2014) 231 FCR 437
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Li (2013) 249 CLR 332
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZTJF [2015] FCA 1052
Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang (1996) 185 CLR 259
MZXLD v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2007] FCA 1912
NALQ v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2004] FCAFC 121
Ngu v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2004) FCAFC 21
Pham v NRMA Insurance Ltd [2014] NSWCA 22
Selvadurai v MIEA (1994) 34 ALD 346
Shretha v Migration Review Tribunal (2015) 229 FCR 301
Singh vMinister for Immigration and Citizenship [2016] FCA 71

SZBEL v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2006) CLR 152
SZRUR v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2013) 216 FCR 445
Zheng vMinister for Immigration and Citizenship [2015] FCA 989

Applicant: BLJ16
First Respondent: MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & BORDER PROTECTION
Second Respondent: ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL
File Number: MLG 1237 of 2016
Judgment of: Judge A Kelly
Hearing date: 4 August 2017
Date of Last Submission: 4 August 2017
Delivered at: Melbourne
Delivered on: 19 September 2017

REPRESENTATION

The Applicant: In person
Counsel for the First Respondent: Mr Petrie
Solicitors for the First Respondent: Clayton Utz
The Second Respondent: Did not appear, having filed a submitting appearance

ORDERS

  1. The application filed on 14 June 2016 be dismissed.

  2. The applicant pay the first respondent’s costs fixed in the sum of $7,206.

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT
OF AUSTRALIA
AT MELBOURNE

MLG 1237 of 2016

BLJ16

Applicant

And

MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & BORDER PROTECTION

First Respondent

And

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL

Second Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Background

  1. The applicant, a 28 year old Indian national, had been raised in the Punjab as an orthodox Hindu.  He first arrived in Australia in October 2008 as the holder of a higher education sector (sub-class 573) visa.  Although the applicant had travelled to India from 6 March to 6 April 2011, he has been resident in Australia since that time. 

  2. On 12 September 2012, the applicant applied for a skilled graduate (class VC) visa, which application was refused on 10 June 2013.  He applied to a migration review tribunal for a review of the decision refusing that application.  On 13 December 2013, the tribunal affirmed the decision to refuse the skilled graduate visa application.

  3. On 13 January 2014, the applicant requested ministerial intervention for the decision refusing the skilled graduate visa application.  He sought from the Minister the substitution of a more favourable decision than that given by the tribunal: sub-s 351(1) Migration Act 1958 (Cth). On 23 September 2014, the request for intervention was declined.

  4. On 16 October 2014, the applicant applied for a protection (class XA) visa, which application was initially assessed as being valid. 

  5. By letter dated 24 October 2014, the second respondent (Department) wrote to the applicant requesting that he provide certain personal identifiers (s 5A) and informed him that he had an opportunity to attend an interview with the Department.  He did not attend an interview.  On 25 November 2014, the application was treated as being invalid for want of the provision of personal identifier.  

  6. On 8 December 2014, the applicant re-applied for a protection visa. 

  7. By letter dated 6 January 2015, the Department again wrote to the applicant requesting that he provide personal identifiers. The Department also invited the applicant to attend an interview at which he could discuss his visa application: sub-s 56(1). The applicant was issued with a bridging visa during the pendency of the determination of his protection visa application: s 73.

  8. On 21 January 2015, the applicant provided the personal identifiers that were requested by the Department.

  9. The applicant did not, however, attend a Departmental interview. 

  10. For completeness I note that, each of the protection visa applications had been made with the assistance of a migration agent.

  11. By his protection visa applications, the applicant explained why he feared serious harm in India.  The applicant explained that he came from an orthodox Hindu Punjabi family who were intolerant of any departure from their traditions.  In particular, the applicant’s position was that his family did not tolerate people who ate non-vegetarian food, drank wine or associated with people from other religions.  The applicant explained that, since arriving in Australia, he had begun eating non-vegetarian food, drinking wine and mixing with people from other cultures.  He stated that he did not disclose these matters to his family as he was “scared of the worst.”  He also stated that honour killings were not uncommon and cited examples of where such killings had been celebrated.  He stated that Indian authorities were “corrupted and infested with fundamentalists” and he “may not be safe.”

  12. By s 65, the Minister is required (subject to exceptions that are not here relevant), to consider a valid protection visa application. Upon such consideration, the Minister is further required to grant or refuse that protection visa application depending upon whether the Minister has reached the requisite state of satisfaction concerning the matters enumerated in sub-para’s 65(1)(a)(i)-(iv).

  13. On 16 April 2015, a delegate of the Minister refused the application for a protection visa. The applicant was notified of that decision: s 66. In substance, the delegate found, having regard to the factors which were identified, that the grounds for the claim to protection were not credible and that there was no objective reason to conclude that the applicant faced harm in India. The delegate was not satisfied that the applicant was owed protection obligations by Australia and found that the criteria for a protection visa were not satisfied.

Review process

  1. Certain persons who are refused an application for a protection visa may seek a review of that decision: s 412. The review process requires that there be a review of the merits of the decision: sub-s 415(1).

  2. On 5 May 2015, the applicant applied to the then Refugee Review Tribunal (now Administrative Appeals Tribunal) (Tribunal) for a merits review of the delegate’s decision refusing his application.  On 6 May 2015, the Tribunal acknowledged that application and provided him with certain information concerning the nature of the review process. The applicant was informed that he could provide further information or evidence to the Tribunal.

  3. Where application is made for the conduct of a review, the Tribunal must, generally, invite the applicant to give evidence and present arguments relating to the issues arising in relation to the decision under review: sub-ss 425(1)-(2).

  4. On 30 March 2016, the Tribunal invited the applicant to attend a hearing scheduled for 6 May 2016.  The applicant attended that hearing, in the course of which he made further claims (being somewhat at odds with those contained in his original application), as follows: 

    (a)he feared returning to India because he had been in a relationship with a Christian girl and for the further reason that he had applied tattoos to his body, including the Christian symbol of a cross;

    (b)he had in fact informed his family of both his Australian lifestyle and his relationship with a woman of Christian beliefs;

    (c)he was now no longer in a relationship with a Christian girl. 

  5. On 19 May 2016, the Tribunal affirmed the delegate’s decision to refuse the visa.  In summary, the reasons of the Tribunal (Reasons) disclose that the applicant’s evidence was found to be vague, ambiguous and not credible: [26]-[29]. The Tribunal concluded that the applicant was not a person to whom Australia owed protection obligations, whether as a refugee or under complementary protection grounds: [31]-[33]; ss 36(2)(a), 36(2)(aa).

  6. The Reasons record of the Tribunal included the following:

    (a)Christian girlfriend:  the Tribunal did not accept the applicant was in a relationship with a Christian girl and identified inconsistent evidence regarding the duration of the alleged relationship.  While the applicant had originally stated that the applicant’s family had been against his relationship with his Christian girlfriend, later he had given evidence that his family had eventually accepted the relationship: [18-19];

    (b)Hindu beliefs: the Tribunal did not accept that the applicant was no longer a Hindu. In this connection, the Tribunal observed that the applicant’s allegation was that his family ceased providing financial support to him at least a year before he had met his Christian girlfriend (whom the applicant identified as being the inspiration for the abandonment of his orthodox traditions). The Tribunal noted inconsistent evidence given by the applicant in relation to how his family discovered that he had begun eating non-vegetarian foods and mixing with persons from other cultures. The Tribunal noted that the applicant gave an oath on the Hindu text, the Gita. While the applicant said that this was the only text he had been offered, the Tribunal referred to its practice (of enquiry before the commencement of a hearing), of asking an applicant of the religion and being offered the appropriate religious text: [20]-[21], [26]. The Refugee Hearing Record confirms that this practice was followed in this hearing;

    (c)Australian lifestyle: the Tribunal did not accept the applicant had broken any rules of his Hindu faith, including by eating non-vegetarian foods, drinking wine or associated with persons of other religions.  It did not accept that the applicant’s family had recently discovered that he had engaged in these practices, that his family had threatened him as a consequence or that his family had cut him off financially. The Tribunal considered the applicant’s evidence to be contradictory: [22];

    (d)Tattoos: while accepting that the applicant did have tattoos, the Tribunal was critical of the applicant’s failure to disclose, in his visa application form, that the fact of his having such tattoos was a reason why he feared returning to India.  The Tribunal did not, in any event, accept that tattoos were against the Hindu faith.  Similarly, the Tribunal did not accept the applicant’s claim that his tattoos meant that he would not be able to find professional employment [23]-[25];

    (e)Risk of harm: the Tribunal, in addition to the identified credibility concerns which it had of the applicant’s evidence, did not accept that the applicant faced a real chance of serious harm from his family, religious people, his community, his caste, Hindu fundamentalists or anyone else for reasons of his religion or for any other reason [26]-[29];

    (f)Delay in seeking protection: the Tribunal considered the applicant’s delay in applying for the visa [27]-[28].  The Tribunal recognised that, following the expiry of his higher education sector visa, the applicant had made a cascading series of applications, including for a skilled graduate visa, ministerial intervention and then a protection visa.  Having first arrived in Australia in October 2008, no application for a protection visa had been lodged until October 2014.  The tribunal applied principles concerning the relevance of delay upon an application for a protection visa: citing Selvadurai v MIEA (1994) 34 ALD 346 (Heerey J); Anandaraj Subrumaniam v MIMA (unrep’ FCA, Carr J, 10 March 1998).

  7. The Tribunal concluded that the applicant did not face a real chance of persecution or a real risk of harm and found that the applicant did not meet the criteria on which a protection visa might be granted: [29]-[33].

Application for judicial review

  1. On 14 June 2016, the applicant commenced a proceeding in this Court seeking an order that the respondent show cause why a remedy should not be granted in exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction under s 476 of the Act in respect of the decision of the Tribunal to affirm the delegate’s decision refusing him a protection visa. On the same date, the applicant filed an affidavit sworn or affirmed on 8 June 2016 in support of his application to which he exhibited a copy of the Tribunal decision. Although the affidavit provided little else by way of evidence, the applicant did depose that “I shall be submitting more evidence and documents in due course of (sic) the court.”

  2. By a response filed on 21 June 2016, the Minister sought orders for the dismissal of the application on the stated basis that the decision of the Tribunal was not affected by jurisdictional error and was, for that reason, a privative clause decision within the meaning of sub-s 474(2) with the result that it was final and conclusive, not amenable to challenge or subject to relief in the nature of prerogative relief, or by way of declaration or injunction.

  3. By his application, the applicant had indicated he did not require the assistance of an interpreter.  Before the hearing this was confirmed by reference to the data stored in the electronic court file.  As to this, the Tribunal noted that the applicant had completed 12 years of education and that he was fluent both in English and Punjabi.  Each of the visa applications indicated that the applicant had been employed as a store retail manager for some time while living in Australia.

  4. On 23 November 2016, orders were made by consent which regulated the further conduct of the proceeding with a view to it being ready for a hearing on 4 August 2017.   Those orders provided that the applicant should have the opportunity to file any amended application with proper particulars of the grounds on which he relied, a supplementary court book and written submissions.  In the period November 2016 – August 2017, the applicant has not filed any amended application, any supplementary court book or any written submissions and, despite his affidavit above, any evidence.  Accordingly, the submissions filed on behalf of the Minister and those made orally at the hearing responded to the matters that had been stated as the grounds for review in the application to this Court.

  5. At the hearing, it became apparent that the applicant had not brought with him a copy of his application, affidavit or a copy of the court book.  A court book was provided the applicant for his use at the hearing. 

Grounds of review

  1. The application filed on 14 June 2016 identified three grounds upon which it was claimed that he was entitled to the relief sought. 

  2. Ground 1 reads:

    I seek an order that the decision of a delegate of the minister and the migration review may be squashed (sic) and be replaced with a more favourable one.

  3. I reject the first ground.

  4. This ground seeks to invoke a merits-based review of the decision.

  5. I accept the Minister’s submission that it is not the Court’s function to reassess the factual material or to make its own factual findings, either on the facts as they were before the Tribunal or on new facts.  To do so would be impermissibly to undertake a further merits review: see, for example, Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang (1996) 185 CLR 259, at 272 and 282-283 (Brennan CJ, Toohey, McHugh and Gummow JJ) citing Attorney-General v Quin (1990) 170 CLR 1, 35-36 (Brennan J); see also at 291-293 (Kirby J).

  6. In Quin, Brennan J observed that the merits of administrative action, to the extent that they could be distinguished from legality, were a matter for the repository of the relevant power.  The caution to avoid a merits review of an administrative decision was echoed more recently in BSJ16 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2017] FCAFC 78, [45] (Collier, Murphy and Burley JJ): see also JL v Secretary, Department of Family and Community Services [2015] NSWCA 88, [112] (McColl JA).

  7. The language of Ground 1 may perhaps reflect the text of s 351 which authorises the Minister to substitute a decision more favourable to the applicant than that which was given by the Tribunal; however, that is not the function of this Court in this proceeding.

  8. Ground 2 reads:

    Due to the medical problems I was not able to provide enough evidence.  However, I was also not given an opportunity to do the same in later stage, since the Hon. Tribunal refused to provide any more time. 

  9. I reject the second ground.

  10. As observed in the course of the hearing, the applicant did not adduce evidence that he had sought an adjournment from the Tribunal at any stage by reason of medical problems or for any other reason.  As noted above, the affidavit sworn or affirmed by the applicant on 14 June 2016 in support of the application initiating this proceeding deposed that the applicant would “be submitting more evidence and documents in due course of (sic) the court.”  On 23 November 2016, an order was made, by consent, setting the proceeding down for hearing on 4 August 2017.

  11. No evidence was filed in this Court which addressed any medical problem that the applicant had encountered or that any adjournment had been sought on 6 May 2016, what the grounds had been relied upon or whether any sufficient medical evidence was adduced.

  12. By para’ 427(1)(b), the Tribunal is authorised to adjourn a proceeding before it.  Absent a formal or informal request by an applicant for an adjournment, and absent any other circumstance that might warrant the Tribunal adjourning a review hearing of its own initiative, it should not be concluded that a Tribunal has acted unreasonably by not adjourning the review: cfMinister for Immigration and Citizenship v Li (2013) 249 CLR 332 at [31] (French CJ); [79]-[80] (Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ) and [122] (Gageler J); Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Singh (2014) 231 FCR 437, [42], [50] (Allsop CJ, Robertson and Mortimer JJ). As the Full Court noted in Singh, it is inappropriate to adopt some sort of factual checklist or formulaic approach in the consideration whether a discretionary power to adjourn has been properly exercised.  Whether an adjournment should be allowed is an intensive inquiry of the facts peculiar to each case.

  1. In the circumstance that the applicant did not provide any evidence in support of a suggested medical problem sufficient to justify it, the Tribunal was entitled to refuse any such adjournment: NALQ v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2004] FCAFC 121 at [35]-[36] (Ryan, French and RD Nicholson JJ).

  2. The vagueness of ground 2 does not illuminate either the nature of the applicant’s medical problem or the period of further time that it might now be suggested was reasonably required.  Nothing is disclosed by the Reasons to suggest that the applicant was not given a meaningful opportunity to appear before the Tribunal, to make arguments or to present evidence.  There is no evidence before this Court suggesting that there was any basis upon which the applicant had not been afforded such opportunities.  Nothing supported a conclusion that the Tribunal ought to have adjourned the hearing on 6 March 2016.

  3. The invitation given pursuant to s 425(1) must be of a kind that affords the applicant a sufficient opportunity to give such evidence and to present argument: SZBEL v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2006) CLR 152 [44]. The individual content of that obligation has been examined on a number of occasions: NALQ, supra [2004] FCAFC 121 at [30]; Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v MZAIV [2016] FCA 251, [51]-[63] and cases there cited.

  4. As Mortimer J observed in MZAIV, while the invitation, which s 425 prescribes be given to an applicant to give evidence and present arguments relating to the issues arising in relation to the decision, must be a meaningful one, it is nonetheless an opportunity. Her Honour held that the content of the obligation to afford that opportunity did not extend to require the Tribunal to ensure that he or she took the most of that opportunity. It follows that, on an application for review by this Court, it is not to the point that the applicant might, with the benefit of hindsight, have taken further steps to put forward more evidence or further and different submissions: [2016] FCA 251, [63], [65].

  5. To similar effect in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Li, Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ observed that the Tribunal was not subject to an obligation to afford an applicant every opportunity to present his or her best possible case and to improve upon the evidence: (2013) 249 CLR 332 at [82]; cfZheng vMinister for Immigration and Citizenship [2015] FCA 989, [25] (Reeves J); Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZTJF [2015] FCA 1052, [44] (Yates J); Singh vMinister for Immigration and Citizenship. [2016] FCA 71, [20] (Perry J).

  6. So here, it may well be that, with the benefit of hindsight, the applicant might have considered that he ought to have made more of the opportunity that was afforded to him to present his case at the Tribunal hearing which he attended.  Nor is it to the point that, with hindsight, the applicant might now recognise that he ought to have taken up the opportunity to put material to the Tribunal (as he foreshadowed that he would, but did not, do in this Court).  In my view, belated, generalised and unsubstantiated complaints of this kind do not support a conclusion of jurisdictional error in this case.

  7. The applicant’s failure to take up opportunities to give evidence and present arguments upon the issues arising in relation to the decision under review does not afford a basis for holding that the Tribunal failed to afford the applicant natural justice.

  8. Ground 3 reads:

    I shall submit more evidence and statements to the Hon. Federal Circuit Court in due course of time.

  9. I reject the third ground.   

  10. I accept the Minister’s submission that, in general, it is not open to an applicant in judicial review proceedings to adduce new evidence for the purpose of persuading a Court that it should disagree with factual conclusions reached by a Tribunal.  In MZXLD v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Gordon J distilled the principle function of judicial review and explained why the Court was generally resistant to permitting the admission of fresh evidence as follows:

    The function of judicial review is a process by which legal error might be corrected, leaving the primary decision maker as wholly responsible for determining questions of fact or the merits of any application. [2007] FCA 1912 at [10]

    Her Honour recognised that, having regard to the distinct function of the Tribunal, the evident danger in acceding to any such request was that to do so necessarily entailed the prospect that the Court would be required to revisit findings of fact made by the Tribunal: [2007] FCA 1912 at [10] citing Wu Shan Liang, supra.  By such process the Court would, in effect, undertake an impermissible merits review.

  11. This general principle does not deny that in exceptional circumstances evidence may be admitted so as to make good a contention on review: MZXLD [2007] FCA 1912 at [10]; BJN16 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (No 2) [2017] FCCA 1512, [109]. Nor should those principles obscure an entitlement, either at the level of summary judgment or on a final hearing, to seek to adduce evidence which may establish jurisdictional error: Shretha v Migration Review Tribunal (2015) 229 FCR 301, [74] (FC). It is then a separate question whether the circumstances of the case are such that the evidence is relevant.

  12. The applicant has had since at least 14 June 2016, when he commenced this proceeding, to submit more evidence and statements as was referred to in Ground 3 of his application.  The applicant has not, however, taken any opportunity to submit any more evidence or statements to the Court, whether in the due course of time or at all. 

Conclusion

  1. As the Reasons disclose, the applicant is fluent in English and Punjabi.  He presented as such.  Nonetheless, the applicant was self-represented and despite his level of education it may be assumed that he was unfamiliar with court processes: cf AMF15 vMinister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] 241 FCR 30, [44(g)]; cfNgu v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2004) FCAFC 21, [11]-[15] (Spender J, Branson and Stone JJ agreeing).

  2. As the Full Court stated in AMF15, there is an aura of pointlessness, unfairness and unreality, in asking, during the course of a hearing, that such a person should identify the jurisdictional error of which they complain: (2016) 241 FCR 30, [44(e)], citing Shretha, supra (2015) 229 FCR 301, [53] (Mansfield, Tracey and Mortimer JJ). With those observations in mind, I have re-examined the Reasons for myself; however, I adhere to the well settled proposition that the reasons of a tribunal “are meant to inform and not to be scrutinised upon over-zealous judicial review by seeking to discern whether some inadequacy may be gleaned from the way in which the reasons are expressed”: Wu Shan Liang, supra (1996) 185 CLR 259, 272, 291; Pham v NRMA Insurance Ltd [2014] NSWCA 22, [16] (Macfarlan JA), [23], [28], [31] (Leeming JA agreeing generally), [36] (Tobias AJA). I note in particular, the following:

    (a)the Tribunal identified the relevant statutory regime pursuant to which the review was to be undertaken and upon which the decision was made: [4]-[8], [30]-[33];

    (b)the Reasons do not distinctly identify each of the materials that were before the Tribunal. However, it is apparent that there was before it the protection visa application and Departmental File: Reasons at [10]. Further, the Reasons, either explicitly or implicitly, do identify the evidence and materials on which the findings were based; para 430(1)(d). By contrast, the delegate had identified the materials that were before him: delegate’s reasons at [5]. The course that seemed appropriate in the circumstances was to re-examine those materials: cf AMF15, supra [44(e)];

    (c)the applicant was invited to attend a Departmental interview to discuss his claim but did not do so. The Reasons indicate that in the course of the Tribunal hearing the applicant suggested that he had not attended such interview because he was running late, his lateness was of such moment that he had insufficient time to attend the Department and that in those circumstances, he had elected to fax his application to the Department: [23]. Whether or not those matters be accurate, the applicant did not raise them before me or adduce evidence as to the veracity of this version. The applicant had an obligation to make reasonable efforts to be available for and attend such interview: s 59. Whatever impact this issue might have played in the Tribunal’s consideration of the matter, I recognise that an evaluation of the applicant’s explanation for not attending an interview with the Department would have fallen for consideration in the context of the Tribunals impression of the credibility of the applicant overall;

    (d)the Reasons also indicate that the applicant was given an opportunity to explain why certain matter had not been relied upon in the making of his application for a protection visa.  When that subject arose in the course of the Tribunal hearing, the applicant sought to attribute the anomaly to an error on the part of his migration agent.  The Reasons do not suggest that this was a case in which the applicant was advancing a complaint that he had been the victim of a fraud on the part of that agent: cf AMF15, supra (2016) 241 FCR 30, [38] citing SZRUR v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2013) 216 FCR 445 (FC). As I have noted, the present case is one in which the applicant was fluent in English and Punjabi. Nothing was said to suggest that the applicant considered any misconduct on the part of his migration agent to be the gravamen of his complaint. Indeed no mention of this topic was made before me;

    (e)although the Tribunal’s decision to affirm the delegate’s decision to refuse the protection visa application turned, in large part, upon adverse credibility findings, the Reasons do not indicate that the manner of those findings were such as to invite challenge.  Again, it must be accepted that the analysis of this issue is not to be approached by resort to fixed categories or formulas: CQG15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] FCAFC 146, [38(a)-(d)] (McKerracher, Griffiths and Rangiah JJ); ARG15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] FCAFC 174, [83] (Griffiths, Perry and Bromich JJ);

    (f)the applicant was not being asked, without notice, to articulate his complaints or to mount his arguments to this Court.  The hearing was set down pursuant to consent orders made in November 2016.  Nothing in the circumstances of this case prevented the applicant from taking the opportunity to identify any aspects of the Tribunal hearing that he contended to be unfair.

  3. Nothing on the face of the Reasons (read alone or in conjunction with the protection visa application and the delegate’s reasons), indicate a basis for concluding that the applicants circumstances were such that he held a well-founded fear of persecution such as to meet the definition of ‘refugee’: ss 5H(1), 5J(1), 36(2)(a). Nor do they indicate a basis for concluding that, if removed from Australia to India, there was a real risk of the applicant facing significant harm in any of the forms or for any of the reasons prescribed by para’s 36(2A)(a)-(e). I do not discern in the Reasons any other matters which cause me to consider that the Tribunal’s decision is affected by jurisdictional error or that the applicant is entitled to relief of the kind now claimed.

I certify that the preceding fifty-two (52) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Judge A Kelly

Date: 19 September 2017

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Cases Citing This Decision

1

Cases Cited

23

Statutory Material Cited

2

Selvadurai v MIEA & Anor [1994] FCA 1105
Kioa v West [1985] HCA 81