CCR16 v Minister for Immigration
[2017] FCCA 2790
•22 November 2017
FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA
| CCR16 v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & ANOR | [2017] FCCA 2790 |
| Catchwords: MIGRATION – Migration Act 1958 (Cth) – application for judicial review of a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal affirming a decision of a Delegate of the Minister to cancel a Protection visa under s.109 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) for non-compliance with s.101(b) – applicant had claimed in his Protection visa application to be stateless but nearly three years subsequent to the grant of a Protection visa had obtained an Iranian passport from the Iranian Embassy in Canberra – Administrative Appeals Tribunal found that the Applicant had not complied with s.101(b) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) in incorrectly claiming to be stateless and concluded that the Protection visa should be cancelled because the Applicant’s non-compliance was deliberate and he had continued to maintain and confirm the incorrect information originally given – no jurisdictional error committed by Administrative Appeals Tribunal in making its factual findings – Administrative Appeals Tribunal not bound to follow other Administrative Appeals Tribunal decisions because not bound by the doctrines of precedent or issue estoppel – application for judicial review dismissed. |
| Legislation: Migration Act 1958 (Cth), ss.101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 414, 415 Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) |
| Cases cited: AZU15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2016) 240 FCR 143 |
| Applicant: | CCR16 |
| First Respondent: | MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & BORDER PROTECTION |
| Second Respondent: | ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL |
| File Number: | SYG 2056 of 2016 |
| Judgment of: | Judge Dowdy |
| Hearing date: | 21 March 2017 |
| Delivered at: | Sydney |
| Delivered on: | 22 November 2017 |
REPRESENTATION
| The Applicant appeared in person. |
| Counsel for the Respondents: | Mr G Johnson of Counsel |
| Solicitors for the Respondents: | DLA Piper |
THE ORDERS OF THE COURT ARE AS FOLLOWS:
The Application filed in this Court on 1 August 2016 is dismissed.
| FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT SYDNEY |
SYG 2056 of 2016
| CCR16 |
Applicant
And
| MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION & BORDER PROTECTION |
First Respondent
| ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL |
Second Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Introduction
The Applicant in this proceeding is a male aged 41 years, having been born on 23 September 1976. He claims to be stateless but has had connection with Iraq, where he was born, and Iran, where he has spent most of his life.
By Application filed in this Court on 1 August 2016 he seeks to quash and have redetermined a decision of the Second Respondent, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (Tribunal) dated 27 June 2016 which affirmed the decision of a Delegate (Delegate) of the First Respondent, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (Minister) dated 16 October 2015 deciding to cancel the Protection (Class XA) (Subclass 866) visa (Protection visa) which had been granted to him on 13 July 2011.
Background
Grant of Protection Visa
The Applicant arrived in Australia from Tehran, via Indonesia, as an unauthorized boat arrival on 29 May 2010, where he was detained on Christmas Island. He then made claims for protection.
The Applicant claimed not to possess any identity documents and to be stateless. He denied holding a valid passport or travel document. He was born in a village in Baghdad, Iraq and claimed that he and his parents were expelled from Iraq in 1980 with no identity documents, and had lived in Iran since 1981. The Applicant claimed to have left Iran on 2 May 2010 using a forged Iranian passport (2010 passport) obtained through an agent, and illegally travelled to Indonesia and then to Christmas Island. He said that his agent had then taken the 2010 passport from him when he boarded the boat in Indonesia. He claimed that he had no right to return to or remain in Iran but feared serious harm if forced to return there.
On 20 April 2011 the Independent Merits Review decision-maker in large part accepted the claims made by the Applicant. She accepted that the Applicant was a Faili Kurd of Iraqi origins who was living in northwest Iran at the time of his departure from Iran. She accepted that he was a non-citizen of Iran without documentation and that he had obtained a false passport, referring to the 2010 passport, through illegal channels.
The Applicant was found not to be a citizen of Iraq or Iran, to be stateless and to have a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of membership of a particular social group, namely “Undocumented Faili Kurd of Iraqi origins”. The Applicant was recommended as a person to whom Australia had refugee obligations under the Refugee Convention ground.
The Applicant was permitted to lodge an application for a Protection visa on 12 July 2011, which he did on a Form 866C. To question 20 of that form, which required him to give his current citizenship, he answered “Stateless”. To question 23 which asked how, when and why he had lost the citizenship which resulted in him being stateless, he answered: “I was deported with my family from Iraq. I have never been recognised as a national of any country”. A Protection visa was granted to him on 13 July 2011.
Process of Cancellation of Protection Visa
The Applicant left Australia for an overseas trip between 15 June 2014 and 23 August 2014, a period of some 10 weeks. On his return to Australia the Applicant told an immigration officer at Sydney Airport that he had spent most of that time in Iran. Amongst his possessions upon his return was an Iranian passport bearing a photograph of the Applicant and issued on 1 May 2014 by the Iranian Embassy in Canberra (2014 passport). This passport contained entry and exit stamps for arrival in and departure from Iran and there was a notation on the passport that the Applicant had last exited Iran on 3 May 2010, which was of course correct on the version of events given originally by the Applicant in support of his Protection visa application. The 2014 passport also stated Iraq as the Applicant’s birthplace, and included the name of his father.
On 11 November 2014 by way of a Notice of Intention to Consider Cancellation (NOICC) a Delegate gave notice to the Applicant under s.107(1) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (the Act) that the Minister would consider cancelling his Protection visa under s.109 for non-compliance with s.101(b) of the Act.
Relevant Statutory Provisions
Section 109 of the Act empowers the Minister to cancel a visa if there has been non-compliance by the visa holder with ss.101, 102, 103, 104, 105 or 107(2). Before a visa is cancelled notice must be given to the relevant visa holder under s.107 to enable she or he to respond. The Minister must consider any response by the visa holder and decide whether there has been non-compliance by the visa holder in the way described by the NOICC: see Zhong v Minister for Immigration (2008) 171 FCR 444 (Zhong) at 446 [8] per Lander J.
Section 101 of the Act provides as follows:
Visa applications to be correct
A non-citizen must fill in or complete his or her application form in such a way that:
(a) all questions on it are answered; and
(b) no incorrect answers are given or provided.
Particulars Alleged in the NOICC of Possible Non-Compliance With s.101(b) of the Act
In the NOICC the Delegate gave particulars of possible non-compliance by the Applicant with the requirements of s.101 of the Act in the following respects:
a)On question 19 of the form 866C Application for an applicant who wishes to submit their own claims to be a refugee, you declared your current citizenship as ‘Stateless’.
b)On question 23 of the same form, it asked ‘If you are stateless, how, when and why did you lose your citizenship?’ you answered, ‘I was deported with my family from Iraq. I have never been recognised as a national of any country’.
I note that the reference to “question 19” should have been to “question 20”: see [7] above.
In the NOICC, the Delegate also put the following matters to the Applicant:
a)He had taken an overseas trip from 15 June 2014 to 23 August 2014 and on return had informed an immigration officer at Sydney Airport that he had spent most of that time in Iran.
b)On return from the trip he was found to be in possession of an Iranian passport issued in his name bearing his photograph, which passport was issued on 1 May 2014 by the Iranian Embassy in Australia, and that the passport contained entry and exit stamps consistent with his travel offshore.
c)In order to have been granted an Iranian passport, he would have needed to have attended the Embassy in person with evidence of his Iranian nationality.
d)This meant he was in possession of Iranian documents which contradicted his claim to have had no documents of identification and that he was stateless.
e)He had not complied with s.101(b) of the Act when applying for a Protection visa because ‘you are not stateless; you hold Iranian citizenship and your fear of persecution if you return back to Iraq is unsupported’.
f)The Delegate considered that the Applicant had provided incorrect answers to questions 19, 23, 41, 52 and 53 in the Protection visa application form lodged on 12 July 2011.
Decision of the Delegate
The Delegate invited the Applicant’s response to the matters set out in the NOICC. The Applicant provided a response to the NOICC by letter dated 8 December 2014, with attachments. On 8 January 2015 the Delegate notified the applicant that reg. 2.41(c) of the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) (Regulations) had been amended from 12 December 2014 and that the change ‘may affect the decision made on whether or not to cancel your visa’. The Applicant was invited to comment in relation to the circumstances prescribed in the amended regulation. The Applicant provided a response to the amended regulation by letter dated 21 January 2015, with attachments. In these responses the Applicant relied on and provided copies of “white cards” finally issued to his parents on 20 June 2014 by the Iranian Government as evidence that they were stateless persons and their right to remain in Iran was dependent on these refugee replacement “white cards” which served as the parents personal identity cards in Iran. It was submitted that these “white cards” were in replacement of “green cards” which had been issued to his parents and himself in Iran in around 1981 and which did not permit him or his family to work or study at high school or university. The Applicant had asserted in his first written statement dated 7 August 2010 after arrival in Australia that the Iranian authorities had replaced “green cards” with “white cards” in around 2001 but had not issued replacement “white cards” to his parents or himself at that time.
By her Decision Record dated 16 October 2015 the Delegate found that the Applicant was an Iranian citizen and was never stateless and that he had provided incorrect answers to questions 19 and 23 on his Protection visa application Form 866C. She made no findings with respect to the answers that the Applicant had given to questions 41, 52 and 53. I note that the incorrect reference in the NOICC to question 19 instead of question 20 was carried through in this Decision Record.
The Delegate did not accept the submission made on behalf of the Applicant that the 2014 passport was false and fake. She accepted what she considered to be credible country information to the effect that in order to be issued with an Iranian passport any applicant must provide evidence of his or her Iranian nationality in order to prove that they were entitled to the passport, including an Iranian birth certificate as well as a National ID card to attest to Iranian citizenship. She found that the overarching requirement for obtaining an Iranian passport is that the applicant is an Iranian citizen.
The Delegate noted that the 2014 passport contained the Applicant’s name and biodata details and that this was a very strong indicator that the Applicant was an Iranian citizen and that he held the required identity documentation to demonstrate his Iranian citizenship. She did not accept it as certain that the “white cards” relied upon by the Applicant were genuine and she found it implausible and inexplicable that his parents would have been denied replacement “white cards” between 2001 and 2014 and she gave little weight to them as evidencing the Applicant’s statelessness.
I note that it has never been part of the Applicant’s case that he acquired Iranian citizenship between 2011 and 2014
Tribunal Hearings and Decision Record
The Applicant applied to the Tribunal on 22 October 2015 for review of the Delegate’s decision and appeared at hearings on 22 March 2016 and 10 June 2016 to give evidence and present arguments, together with his registered migration agent who was in attendance at both hearings.
At [7] – [8] of its Decision Record the Tribunal noted the relevant statutory provisions and accepted, consistent with the decision of Lander J in Zhong, that where a NOICC is issued that does not comply with the requirements of s.107 of the Act the power to cancel a visa does not arise.
At [9] – [17] of its Decision Record the Tribunal considered the terms and content of the NOICC and at [18] it recorded its satisfaction that the NOICC complied with the terms of s.107 of the Act and that the NOICC’s incorrect reference to question 19 instead of question 20 did not invalidate the NOICC. Although the Applicant does not argue that the NOICC was invalid, I record that I agree with the Tribunal that the NOICC was valid and was not invalidated by the typographical error of the reference to question 19 rather than to question 20. This is because s.107 requires the giving of particulars of possible non-compliance and the NOICC did give the relevant particulars to the effect that in answer to a question on the Protection visa application Form 866 the Applicant had declared that his current citizenship was stateless. The reference to the wrong question number did not make any difference to the communication to the Applicant of the substantive particulars in this regard.
At [19] – [31] of its Decision Record the Tribunal recorded the relevant facts and then at [32] – [47] it considered and analysed those facts. At [34] it recorded that the Applicant claimed that both the 2010 passport and the 2014 passport were fake and that he was indeed a stateless Faili Kurd from Iraq. At [35] it recorded that it did not accept the Applicant’s explanations about how he had obtained both passports and that his evidence in this regard was inconsistent and evasive. It then at [36] – [42] recorded examples of such inconsistency and evasiveness which I do consider it necessary to recapitulate here.
At [43] of its Decision Record the Tribunal found that the fact that the Applicant’s correct details relating to his birth in Baghdad and Iraq appeared on his two Iranian passports and the notation in the 2014 passport that he had left Iran in 2010 were inconsistent with their being fake. The Tribunal reasoned that a fake passport would have been likely to have stated that the Applicant was born in Iran and thus had Iranian citizenship by birth, which would have rendered less likely adverse attention being drawn to the Applicant.
At [44] of its Decision Record the Tribunal accepted country information that biometric passports had been issued in Iran since February 2011, and that therefore the 2014 passport would have been biometric. It accepted DFAT’s assessment that it would not be possible to pass through the Tehran Airport without sufficient documentation, at least not without the complicity of airport authorities. The Tribunal did not accept that the Applicant’s exit from Iran in 2010 and entry and exit from Iran in 2014 were enabled by complicity with airport authorities and did not accept that either passport was fake.
At [46] of its Decision Record the Tribunal recorded its finding that, given the inconsistencies in the Applicant’s evidence, his claim about his citizenship was not credible. The Tribunal recorded that it did not accept that the “white cards” were genuine. The Tribunal had previously recorded at [45] of its informing the Applicant at the Tribunal hearing, when considering the “white cards”, that it might not accept that they were genuine because the Applicant himself had claimed to have travelled on two false passports in the past.
Accordingly, at [47] of its Decision Record the Tribunal found that there was non-compliance with s.101 of the Act in the way described in the NOICC. The Tribunal then at [48] – [75] considered whether the Protection visa should be cancelled and noted that the decision to grant the Protection visa to the Applicant was based wholly or partly on the incorrect information given by the Applicant, namely that he was stateless. The Tribunal found that the non-compliance was deliberate, and that he had continued to maintain and confirm the incorrect information originally given.
In the result the Tribunal, at [76] – [77] of its Decision Record, concluded that that the Protection visa should be cancelled and it affirmed the Delegate’s decision to do so.
Grounds of Attack on Tribunal Decision in this Court
The Grounds of review relied upon by the Applicant in his Application filed in this Court were as follows:
i)The Tribunal erred through a constructive failure to exercise its review jurisdiction by its failure to make an obvious inquiry about a critical fact – the validity of the Iraqi refugee status of the parents of the applicant in Iran, which could have been readily ascertained by an enquiry to the Australian Embassy in Tehran about the parents’ White Cards tendered to the Tribunal – as per the High Court guidelines in Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v SZIAI [2009] HCA 39 at [25].
ii)The Tribunal further erred by its failure to discuss and give reasons in its Decision for its finding at para 46 that it does not accept the White Cards alluded to as only “documents of which he provided copies in support of his case” are genuine.
iii)The Tribunal misrepresented the representative’s reference to another AAT case as a claim that it was the same facts. The representative was drawing attention to the other Tribunal’s statement that it had to be “positively satisfied” that the answers in the original application were correct. The Tribunal declared it “does not agree”.
iv)This rendered the Tribunal’s decision manifestly unreasonable.
Consideration
Ground 1
This Ground seems to be an assertion that the Tribunal was under an obligation to make contact with the Australian Embassy in Tehran and enquire about the refugee status of the parents of the Applicant and the “white cards” submitted to the Tribunal, notwithstanding that there is no suggestion in the Decision Record that it was ever asked to contact the Australian Embassy in Tehran for that purpose.
The passage referred to in this Ground at [25] of the judgment of French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Crennan, Kiefel and Bell JJ in Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v SZIAI (2009) 259 ALR 429 (SZIAI) at 436 is as follows:
[25] Although decisions in the Federal Court concerned with a failure to make obvious inquiries have led to references to a “duty to inquire”, that term is apt to direct consideration away from the question whether the decision which is under review is vitiated by jurisdictional error. The duty imposed upon the tribunal by the Migration Act is a duty to review. It may be that a failure to make an obvious inquiry about a critical fact, the existence of which is easily ascertained, could, in some circumstances, supply a sufficient link to the outcome to constitute a failure to review. If so, such a failure could give rise to jurisdictional error by constructive failure to exercise jurisdiction.35 It may be that failure to make such an inquiry results in a decision being affected in some other way that manifests itself as jurisdictional error. It is not necessary to explore these questions of principle in this case...
That passage and SZIAI itself is not authority for the proposition that the Tribunal has a general duty to enquire or investigate. As Bromwich J recently said in Westlake v Attorney-General of the Commonwealth [2017] FCA 1058 at [27]:
[27]It has long been the law, at least in the migration area, that there is no duty on an administrative decision-maker to inquire or conduct investigations, except perhaps in very limited circumstances: see Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZIAI [2009] HCA 39; 111 ALD 15; 259 ALR 429 at [25]; Ayoub v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2015] FCAFC 83; 231 FCR 513 at [24]. The circumstances of this case do not meet any of those very limited exceptions, nor otherwise give rise to a duty to make inquiries of the kind suggested on behalf of the applicant.
In my view the Tribunal was under no obligation to contact the Australian Embassy in Tehran. The Tribunal did not make a jurisdictional error by concluding that the “white cards” were not genuine without first enquiring of the Australian Embassy in Tehran concerning their validity: SZNKV v Minister for Immigration & Citizenship [2010] 118 ALD 232 at 242 [33] – [34] per Kenny J.
Rather, it was for the Applicant to make his case before the Tribunal and the Tribunal to review the Delegate’s decision to cancel his Protection visa. As Bennett J said in SZNVX v Minister for Immigration [2009] FCA 1403 at [29]:
[29]Finally, it is for the appellant to provide to the Tribunal whatever evidence or argument he wishes to advance in support of his claims (Abebe at [187] per Gummow and Hayne JJ). It is not for the Tribunal to make the appellant’s case for him. The Tribunal is not obliged to stimulate elaborations that the appellant did not choose to give or to act as his “nursemaid” (Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v SZFDE [2006] FCAFC 142; (2006) 154 FCR 365 at [199]–[200] per Allsop and Graham JJ – appeal allowed by the High Court but not on this point).
Further, the status of the “white cards” was hardly a critical matter of fact. They related to the parents of the Applicant and not to the Applicant himself and their status had no central importance for the Tribunal’s finding that the Applicant was not stateless but was a citizen of Iran. The logical connection between his parent’s status in Iran and the applicant’s status there was never articulated with any precision. The terms of the “white cards” merely referred to the parents being citizens of Iraq, and nothing on their face constituted probative evidence as to the citizenship of the Applicant himself.
Finally, a failure to accord any weight to a piece of evidence does not give rise to jurisdictional error by virtue of the failure alone: Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Eshetu (1999) 197 CLR 611.
In my view Ground 1 fails to establish jurisdictional error.
Ground 2
In this Ground the Applicant asserts that the Tribunal erred in failing to give reasons at [46] of its Decision Record for finding that the “white cards” were not genuine. This Ground is also misconceived.
At [35] of its Decision Record the Tribunal rejected the Applicant’s explanations of how he had obtained the 2010 and 2014 passports and found that the Applicant’s evidence was inconsistent and evasive, and his claim about his lack of citizenship not to be credible.
At [45] of its Decision Record the Tribunal recorded that it had asked the question of why it should accept that the “white cards” were genuine when the Applicant himself had claimed to travel on two false passports in the past.
In the first sentence of [46] the Tribunal repeated its finding that the Applicant’s evidence was unreliable and found that his claim about his citizenship were not credible. Having come to these adverse views about the credibility of the Applicant’s evidence and central contentions the Tribunal did not commit jurisdictional error by coming to the view that it did not accept the “white cards” as genuine. As Gleeson CJ said in Re Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs; Ex parte Applicant S20/2002 (2003) 198 ALR 59 at [12]:
[12]… It is not necessarily irrational, or illogical, for a finder of fact, who is convinced that a principal witness is fabricating a story, which is considered to be inherently implausible, to reject corroborative evidence, even though there is no separate or independent ground for its rejection, apart from the reasons given for disbelieving the principal witness.
In my view it was open for the Tribunal to assess the credibility of the Applicant, and then given its adverse view of his credibility, to refuse to accept the “white cards” as genuine and give them no weight, and it committed no jurisdictional error in so acting.
Accordingly, Ground 2 fails.
Ground 3
In this Ground the Applicant appears to assert that the Tribunal “misrepresented” his registered migration agent’s reference to the Tribunal’s determination of another case involving similar facts to the Applicant’s case. The Applicant has not tendered a transcript of the Tribunal hearing to establish any such misrepresentation or misunderstanding, although he accepted the obligation to do so by consent order 3 made on 23 September 2016 in this Court.
The only reference in the Decision Record of the Tribunal with seeming relevance to this Ground is at [46] where the following is stated:
[46] The representative referred the Tribunal to a case where the decision was made not to cancel the visa and claimed that it was the same facts. The Tribunal does not agree. The Tribunal is determining this case on the particular facts relating to the applicant.
In the absence of any identification of the Tribunal decision allegedly referred to by the Applicant’s registered migration agent it is difficult to give any real sense to this Ground. Suffice it to say that the Tribunal was correct to take the view that it had to determine the review application on the particular facts relating to the Applicant.
The hearing before the Tribunal was a hearing de novo: see SAAZ v Minister for Immigration [2002] FCA 791. The “review” spoken of in s.414(1) of the Act and the powers of the Tribunal granted by s.415 to exercise all the powers and discretions conferred on the primary decision-maker indicate that the review which the Tribunal is directed to undertake is one involving its standing in the shoes of the Delegate of the First Respondent in considering afresh the application for a student visa: SAAZ (supra) [19]-[20] per Mansfield J.
Further, nothing like the doctrine of precedent or issue estoppel applies to decisions of the Tribunal. In Ibrahim v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (2000) 63 ALD 37 (Ibrahim), the Tribunal refused to grant the applicant a Protection visa, although the applicant’s sister had been granted a Protection visa by a differently constituted Tribunal some ten months earlier. The Full Federal Court rejected an argument that the Tribunal had improperly failed to adopt an approach consistent with the facts found by that Tribunal which had heard the applicant’s sister’s application. At Ibrahim 41 [15] the Full Court comprised of Burchett, Goldberg and Finkelstein JJ said:-
[15] There is no merit in the submission that the tribunal was obliged to adopt an approach to fact finding on the objective aspects of the circumstances of the appellant's case consistent with the fact finding of the tribunal which determined the appellant's sister's application in December 1998. Although consistency may be an important element of good administrative decision-making each case must be considered in the context of its individual circumstances...
In Soboleva v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (2001) 113 FCR 353 Moore J at 359 [21] said:
[21]There is nothing in the Act to suggest that the Tribunal is bound in some way by conclusions reached in previous decisions. Indeed the Act, and in particular s420, requires that the Tribunal must act in accordance with the merits of the case. As the Full Court explained in Sellamuthu v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs (1999) 90 FCR 287 the nature of the Tribunal's task in reviewing a decision requires a consideration of all available evidence. In performing that task, the Tribunal cannot, in principle, be constrained by what it had decided in earlier cases.
In NABW v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [2002] FCA 464 at [13] Sackville J said (omitting unnecessary citations):
[13] So far as the applicant's complaint relating to the RRT's failure to refer to its earlier decisions is concerned, the general principle is that the RRT is not bound to refer to such decisions merely because they raise similar issues to those presented by the particular application for review. The question for determination by the RRT is whether it is satisfied on the materials before it that the applicant has a well-founded fear of persecution if returned to his or her country of nationality… The RRT is not bound by conclusions reached in previous decisions and is entitled to disregard those decisions if it considers them to be irrelevant…
This Ground fails to establish jurisdictional error.
Ground 4
This Ground seems dependent on the first three Grounds in asserting that by reason of the complaints made in those Grounds the Tribunal’s decision was manifestly unreasonable.
I have rejected the first three Grounds and in my view the Decision Record of the Tribunal appears to constitute a reasoned, coherent and comprehensive decision which does not manifest illogicality, irrationality or legal unreasonableness or lack an intelligible justification.
Further, the Tribunal’s extensive and comprehensive reasons for rejecting the core elements of the Applicant’s case do not constitute a blanket, reflex or exaggerated adverse credit finding but rather reflect a proper examination of the Applicant’s claims: AZU15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2016) 240 FCR 143 at 145 [11].
In my view Ground 4 fails.
Conclusion
In my view the Applicant has failed to establish that the decision of the Tribunal was affected by jurisdictional error and the Application must be dismissed.
I certify that the preceding fifty-five (55) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Judge Dowdy
Associate:
Date: 22 November 2017
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