Chhour v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs

The case of Chhour v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs involves the applicant challenging a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) that rejected his claim for refugee status. The dispute centred on the RRT’s reliance on a discrepancy between the applicant's account of an incident in May 1996 and that of a witness, Mr Van Dy, as a basis for its decision. The matter was heard in the Federal Court of Australia, where the applicant raised several grounds for review of the RRT's decision.

The primary legal issues the court had to address were whether the RRT's decision was based on a particular fact that did not exist and whether there was any evidence or other material to justify the decision. Specifically, the court had to consider whether the RRT's reliance on the supposed discrepancy was sufficient to constitute a basis for its decision under section 476(1)(g) of the Migration Act, as qualified by section 476(4)(b). The court examined whether the decision was made without any evidence or material to justify it, and whether the decision was based on a particular fact that did not exist.

The Federal Court, following the Full Court's reasoning in Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Indatissa, held that the applicant's ground of review was not made out. The court found that the RRT's decision was not critically based on the existence of the alleged discrepancy. Moreover, the court held that for the ground to be valid, there must be no evidence or material to justify the decision. The court determined that as long as there was some evidence or material supporting the RRT's decision, the ground of review could not succeed. Given the existence of evidence supporting the RRT's findings, the court dismissed the application for review.

The court ordered that the application for review be dismissed and that the applicant pay the respondent’s costs.